Comments on: Traveston Dam: the folly continues http://econews.org.au/traveston_dam/ Environmental news from Eco online, Sunshine Coast and Queensland environmental news, with indepth sections including interviews, sustainable business, eco adventures, green living and wildlife Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:25:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc hourly 1 By: Burrum River Farmer http://econews.org.au/traveston_dam/comment-page-1/#comment-84 Burrum River Farmer Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:37:57 +0000 http://econews.org.au/traveston_dam/#comment-84 The state government has a bad track record with infrastructure. In Andrew Macnamas electorate of Hervey Bay, the Lenthalls Dam raising ( Burrum River) was completed in Dec 07 and the Lenthalls Dam gates have failed from Jan 08 and are still not repaired. The state govt has not held any of those responsible for this infrastructure failure to account. Those responsible for the dam gate failure still have andrew mcnamaras support. The gates at Lenthalls Dam were designed to lower to release flood water to ensure that mouth of the Burrum River remained open and that the seagrass beds and mangroves forming part of the marine park at the river mouth recieved flushing. Obvously now that the Lenthalls Dam gates wont lower as designed this environmental flow is impeded. Not only is the Traveston Dam a disaster but people in the Traveston Community will have to live with affects for years later. I am concerned that the state govt does not have the skills to administer the infrastructure they are building. Lenthalls Dam Gates (to raise storage on the Burrum River) just north of Traveston was completed in Dec 07 and failed from 01/08. The infrastructure cost millions of dollars and still doesn not work. Our Family ( upstream) were almost washed away by the failure of the gates. See the ABCarticle: Resident fears dam gates risk flooding Updated Wed May 21, 2008 8:25am AEST • Map: Hervey Bay 4655 A land-holder upstream of a major dam south-west of Hervey Bay says multi-million dollar barriers on the storage are broken, putting her family at risk of flooding. Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas will officially open the $16 million project at Lenthalls Dam, which is designed to more than double the storage’s capacity. In what is claimed to be an Australian first, the two metre high crest gates sink when the dam reaches capacity to prevent flooding upstream and provide for environmental flows. But Esther Allan says in February the gates jammed, causing water to back up onto her property. “This is an extremely expensive piece of infrastructure. Ratepayers paid for this and their expectation would be that it would be operable,” she said. “If it wasn’t, we need to know why - not only because our family’s safety was put at risk, but because ratepayers expect to get a result from the infrastructure they pay for.” The local government corporation that runs Lenthalls Dam says the gates do not work, but it was monitoring the rising water. Wide Bay Water general manager David Wiskar says adjustments were needed during the dam’s commissioning and are continuing. “The gates were all needing some fine-tuning. At the moment we were able to complete that tuning on three of the gates,” he said. “There’s two that remain to be done, but we’re waiting until the level in the dam falls to an adequate level to [do] those final two.” The state government has a bad track record with infrastructure. In Andrew Macnamas electorate of Hervey Bay, the Lenthalls Dam raising ( Burrum River) was completed in Dec 07 and the Lenthalls Dam gates have failed from Jan 08 and are still not repaired. The state govt has not held any of those responsible for this infrastructure failure to account.
Those responsible for the dam gate failure still have andrew mcnamaras support.
The gates at Lenthalls Dam were designed to lower to release flood water to ensure that mouth of the Burrum River remained open and that the seagrass beds and mangroves forming part of the marine park at the river mouth recieved flushing. Obvously now that the Lenthalls Dam gates wont lower as designed this environmental flow is impeded.

Not only is the Traveston Dam a disaster but people in the Traveston Community will have to live with affects for years later. I am concerned that the state govt does not have the skills to administer the infrastructure they are building.
Lenthalls Dam Gates (to raise storage on the Burrum River) just north of Traveston was completed in Dec 07 and failed from 01/08.

The infrastructure cost millions of dollars and still doesn not work. Our Family ( upstream) were almost washed away by the failure of the gates.
See the ABCarticle:
Resident fears dam gates risk flooding
Updated Wed May 21, 2008 8:25am AEST
• Map: Hervey Bay 4655
A land-holder upstream of a major dam south-west of Hervey Bay says multi-million dollar barriers on the storage are broken, putting her family at risk of flooding.
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas will officially open the $16 million project at Lenthalls Dam, which is designed to more than double the storage’s capacity.
In what is claimed to be an Australian first, the two metre high crest gates sink when the dam reaches capacity to prevent flooding upstream and provide for environmental flows.
But Esther Allan says in February the gates jammed, causing water to back up onto her property.
“This is an extremely expensive piece of infrastructure. Ratepayers paid for this and their expectation would be that it would be operable,” she said.
“If it wasn’t, we need to know why - not only because our family’s safety was put at risk, but because ratepayers expect to get a result from the infrastructure they pay for.”
The local government corporation that runs Lenthalls Dam says the gates do not work, but it was monitoring the rising water.
Wide Bay Water general manager David Wiskar says adjustments were needed during the dam’s commissioning and are continuing.
“The gates were all needing some fine-tuning. At the moment we were able to complete that tuning on three of the gates,” he said.
“There’s two that remain to be done, but we’re waiting until the level in the dam falls to an adequate level to [do] those final two.”

]]>