Dam opponents happy to see some hope. Image Arkin Mackay.
It was a surprise announcement, from left field, as they say. The Premier on the morning news stating that Traveston Dam may be delayed by “at least several years” and that water re-cycling was in doubt. The Courier Mail would call it “Gone to Water” while the Gympie times led with “Dam’s End is Bligh”.
It seemed to show the first backing away from a plan that was hastily announced on the eve of the previous state election and it looked like great cause for celebration. Media and campaigners converged on Traveston Crossing and spirits were high. It was a clear sign that the dam proposal wouldn’t have passed the federal approvals process.
The Premier took a totally different angle, pointing out that 85 per cent of the area was degraded by farming and that substantial mitigation works needed to be carried out, presumably both upstream and downstream of the dam area, before it might get approval. By next day, though, she was backing away from the “delay” statement, saying that the EIS should still be with the federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett by next April as planned.
While it was locals hastily gathered together on the banks of the Mary River that day, the case has well and truly entered the national environment arena. As well as peak national conservation groups, the Senate has now passed three motions relating to Traveston, the latest by Queensland Liberal Senator Ian McDonald to scrap it completely. Media reports now consistently refer to the “controversial” Traveston Dam proposal.
Confusing any thoughts of a government exit strategy on the dam, though, is the fact that Queensland Water Infrastructure, a wholly government-owned company has run well ahead of the pack in preparations for the dam. An aggressive purchasing strategy has seen many properties sold to QWI .
“It was as if they were totally thumbing their noses at even the possibility that the Federal Government might reject this proposal,” said one. “We were told it was a definite goer and that if we wanted the best price we should sell now.”
Businessmen report similar experiences, with a host of seminars organised, offering opportunities arising from the construction of the dam. Even the local Mayor, a self-professed opponent of the dam seemed to have become swayed toward inevitability by the insistence of QWI, and had even started to talk about community off-sets.
In the local community QWI strategically targeted its financial largesse. The Gympie Muster reportedly received some $100 000 in funding which many saw as little more than a bribe, especially when Muster star John Williamson was advised he couldn’t wear his Mary River Turtle T-shirt on stage.
Coinciding with, and probably precipitating, the Premier’s “delay” announcement, was the release of several damning independent reports originally commissioned by the Federal Department of Environment and subsequently tabled in state parliament by Gympie MP David Gibson. The reports simply gave more credence to what opponents have been saying all along.
When Peter Beattie referred to the Mary as “hardly pristine” and when the present Premier points to the environmental degradation from farming, they conveniently overlook two key points. The real test of environmental degradation has to be measured in terms of what still manages to live in and near the river. With several unique species, the Mary scores well in that department. The other is that the least degraded section of river is precisely that part proposed for inundation. Cattle may indeed trample some Mary River Turtle eggs, as was claimed in Parliament, but the Traveston area shows the best recruitment of juveniles.
It was all eerily reminiscent of Harry Butler loosing all environmental credibility when he entered the Franklin Dam debate, declaring that the Franklin wasn’t really wilderness, not far short of Premier Gray’s labelling it a “leech-infested ditch”.
So Queenslanders approach a state election not really sure whether there is a delay or not and even less certain as to what it means for the Mary. They seem to have a much better grasp than the Premier, though, of the fundamental tenet of conservation biology, that of the imperative of conserving areas of high-quality habitat and are encouraged that the federal government seems prepared to stand up to the “bull at a gate’ approach of the Queensland government.
Persisting with the hastily conceived folly of Traveston, is simply pouring good money after bad.
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