Shifting from pioneering to mature and efficient water use

The following letter by John Connell was published in the Townsville Bulletin on 1 May 2021.

In the last week several Federal politicians, McCormack and Littleproud passed through Townsville and talked up building more dams in the north. They criticised the Queensland Government for being slow to spend big dollars on building new dams, a mouth-watering $6B for Hells Gates Dam.

These are intelligent men, and so they should take the time to do the maths. The water really isn't there. In the TEL (Townsville Enterprise Ltd.) proposal, Hells Gates Dam would provide up to 580,000 ML from the Upper Burdekin catchment to irrigate 50,000 ha. TEL's Feasibility Study of 2018 showed that while the mean flows are 1,160,000 ML per year, the flows in most years will be closer to half that. Extracting half or more of the mainstream flows is not acceptable for the health of the river. We only need to look at the Murray-Darling.

The #StopAdani Roadshow returns to Townsville on 27 April after the original event was cancelled due to Cyclone Debbie. Organisers are expecting to the 400 seat theatre at Event Cinema.

“The momentum to Stop Adani just keeps growing. We are excited by how many North Queenslanders are getting behind this event and joining the movement to Stop Adani” says North Queensland Conservation Council coordinator Maree Dibella.

“Communities are putting on film screenings in Port Douglas, Cairns, Mackay and Rockhampton. There are over 110 community groups leading campaigns in their towns and suburbs, with 12 just in regional Queensland.