Traveston Dam gets approval

THE controversial $1.6 billion Traveston Crossing Dam has been given environmental approval and could get the go-ahead from Federal Government within weeks.

Queensland Co-Ordinator General Colin Jensen has signed off on the project – with a host of new environmental conditions, including more protection for endangered fish, frogs and turtles in the Mary River.

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Work will start at the site near Gympie by early next year if federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett gives his approval. Bruce Highway upgrades will also begin with the work.

But anti-dam campaigners will be angered by the latest developments and are likely to step up their legal action. They have vowed to fight the case to the High Court if it is necessary.

Premier Anna Bligh, who will today celebrate her second anniversary as Labor party leader, welcomed Mr Jensen's eco-approval and the strict conditions to build the dam. She will today announce that Mr Jensen has come up with extensive new conditions under which he believed the dam could proceed.

Ms Bligh announced in State Parliament last November that the project would be delayed for several years while environmental mitigation work was completed.

"This decision comes after the most extensive environmental work on probably any project in our history. It has taken two years to get to this point," Ms Bligh said.

"The Coordinator-General has advised the Federal Government that he believes the dam can proceed with conditions.

"The Federal Minister should make a decision on the environmental issues surrounding the dam by November.

"If (Mr Garrett) gives approval, work on Traveston Dam will start in the New Year, supporting thousands of jobs in Queensland and providing water security for the region."

Ms Bligh briefed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last night on the latest Traveston developments.

It was Ms Bligh who, in November 2006 as Deputy Premier, faced an angry crowd of 1500 in Gympie and endured five hours of tough questions, taunts, jeers and boos.

The Government said the project was a priority while the southeast corner was in drought.

But the project looked doomed two years later when Ms Bligh announced in State Parliament last November that Traveston would be delayed up to four years to ensure environmental mitigation works were completed before construction rather than after, as had been proposed.

Then Opposition leader Lawrence Springborg said: "The dam is now dead."

Mr Jensen told Nicklin's Independent MP Peter Wellington as recently as August 18 that he was still waiting on more information to finish his report for the Environment Minister.

But Ms Bligh will announce today that Mr Jensen had now provided Mr Garrett with a draft set of the extensive conditions under which he believed the dam could proceed.

She said the conditions would make the dam the "greenest" in Australian history.

The Premier said there would be an immediate improvement in environmental conditions with hundreds of workers on site to complete fencing and other early works.

Upgrades of the Bruce Highway would also be completed before construction of the dam wall started.

The new measures are unlikely to impress anti-dam campaigners, but the Premier said many species would become extinct if the dam did not go ahead.

"Farming practices in the region over the last 150 years have degraded their habitat and have resulted in their endangered status," she said

"The environmental research conducted as part of the project has confirmed the true status of these species and has presented us with a stark reality.

"If the current land use practices are allowed to continue they will probably die out."

The first stage of the dam would deliver about 70,000 megalitres a year – enough water for about 800,000 people a day.

Since the project was announced in April 2006, rain in the catchment meant it would have filled 10 times had it been built, water experts say.

The Government had so far spent $500 million on the project, most of it on acquiring about 400 properties. That was more than double the $241 million estimated for land purchases in the Environmental Impact Statement two years ago.

Critics said Ms Bligh had hoped her Coordinator-General or Mr Garrett would effectively kill off the controversial dam and save her from further embarrassment. But she maintained her support in public.

"I have always said that southeast Queensland needs this project. I haven't changed my mind. I back it and I want to see it built," the Premier said yesterday.

"The alternative to this dam is two more desalination plants the size of the $1.2 billion Tugun plant and that would mean a significantly higher economic and environmental cost."

Opposition infrastructure and planning spokesman and Member for Gympie David Gibson said last month that Traveston was a "political decision" and had "destroyed the whole social fabric of the Mary Valley".

source: www.news.com.au