Hervey Bay Gossip

The Queensland Premier flew into Gympie today to make his long-awaited announcement about the Traveston Dam.

The proposed dam will not be as big as originally though and perhaps only 500 homes will need to be resumed. Key infrastructure will also be preserved.

Follow the link to read more about the Premier’s Traveston Dam Proposal.

It’s unlikely that the wittled down plan will find anymore favourable reception with the people in the Mary Valley than the original proposal did and the damage to the waters around Hervey Bay will still happen even though the dam is going to be only half the size of the original.

… the Courier Mail is running an interesting poll on their website to see whether people would be willing to accept water restrictions to save homes from being inundated.

To register your vote you need to go here and scroll down the page a little way and look for the heading ‘Latest Poll’.

Premier Peter Beattie will be in Gympie tomorrow 5 July to announce what he intends to do to destroy the Mary River with the Traveston Dam.

You are cordially invited to be at The Pavilion, Gympie Showgrounds, Exhibition Road Gympie at 1pm to let him know just what you think of his wonderfully short-sighted plan that will have a major adverse impact on places as far away as Hervey Bay.

The latest news on the Traveston dam is not good.

Here is the latest news from the official ant-dam website.

The Premier announced today that he will be coming to the Mary Valley sometime this week to explain why he intends to proceed with the Traveston Dam. This is one occasion where it would be good to have as many people as possible front up to meet him (a couple of thousand would be good).

Please be prepared to come to an unspecified location at short notice and contact as many friends as possible via phone trees etc.

We will try to organize a meeting where we can know the time and location in advance, but we must not be surprised if he just turns up at short notice via helicopter, much in the same way he did for the initial announcement.

This looks like the beginning of the serious fight to save the Mary River.

For more information you can log on to their website at http://www.savethemaryriver.com

As resistance to Traveston Dam grows and the Teflon Premier refuses to look at other options we are seeing more and more reasons appearing for not building the dam.

There are suggestions that a government report that was commissioned in 1994 ruled Traveston out because of the high cost and loss of prime agricultural land.

Experts suggest that regional weather patterns around the proposed dam will only be full at the same time as any of the other dams that are currently at critical levels.

The Australian is currently reporting that their investigations show that the soil beneath the dam is so porous that there would be considerable loss of stored water through seepage.

The Queensland Farmers Federation syas that 180 productive farms will disappear under water and that 10% of southern Queensland’s dairy production happens on some of those 180 farms.

Even industry here in Hervey Bay will be affected when the Traveston Dam is built. The Dam will obviously seriously affect the flow of the Mary River into Hervey Bay and that will reduce fish stocks to the point where the local fishing industry will cease to exist.

Traveston Dam is not the answer to anything - all it will do is create major problems in the future - but by then Teflon Pete won’t have to worry about them because he will have retired on a nice fat pension.

Warren Truss - the Federal Member for Wide Bay (which includes Hervey Bay) by accusing the Queensland Premier of bully boy tactics over the Traveston Dam in the Mary Valley.

“Mr Beattie doesn’t even seem to care that environmental, engineering, social and feasibility studies have have only just commenced. Nor does he care about the increasing number of Queenslanders who believe the mega-dam would cause irreparable environmental and social damage, not to mention the flooding of the Bruce Highway and many of the options for the Cooroy to Curra upgrade.”

Mr Truss has repeatedly said that it seemed incredible that the Queensland Government would declare its support for the mega-dam before it has costed the proposal or tested whether it can even be constructed.

“This latest outrageous statement from the Labor Premier is proof that the Queensland Government is simply trying to escape judgement in the cities for failing to address water needs over many years. Mr Beattie clearly has no concern for the disaster he is inflicting on the people of the Mary Valley as long as he entertains the people of Brisbane who are about to experience stepped-up water restrictions. Remember these water restrictions would not be required if the previous Labor Government had not cancelled the Wolffdene Dam.

“If Mr Beattie thinks he can forge ahead with the Traveston Dam without regard for its negative impacts, he is sorely mistaken.

“The Beattie Government developed the plan for the unwelcome Traveston Dam without consulting the people of Gympie and district and the Premier is still not listening,” he said.