By Jenel Hunt
After 43 years of ‘open and transparent deliberation’, the beleaguered Emu Swamp Dam is still the Southern Downs Regional Council’s ‘preferred solution’ to providing water for the Stanthorpe region.
“Notwithstanding the many other facets of long-term water security being pursued, the council considers the construction of Emu Swamp Dam to be a critical component of the overall water security solution for Stanthorpe, the Granite Belt and the broader Southern Downs region,” a council press release stated.
“The proposal as it exists today is the result of 43 years of open and transparent deliberation that various terms of council has had with the Queensland Government and our community, and it is still currently the preferred solution to providing water to irrigators as well as meeting our urban needs,” Mayor Vic Pennisi said.
The proposed dam is a highly emotive subject on the Granite Belt and has received a split reaction from the community. A recent blow to future financial aid came when the Federal Government announced at its Federal Budget in October last year that its promised funding had been put on hold.
Cr Pennisi said although it was the preferred solution, the dam was not the only option for long-term water security being pursued for all of Southern Downs.
During the 2019 to 2022 drought, Stanthorpe’s water supply at Storm King Dam ran out, and water was trucked from Connolly Dam (near Warwick) to Stanthorpe, a $10 million project that was bankrolled by the Queensland Government. The Queensland Government subsequently announced a $19.34 million package, called the Southern Downs Drought Resilience Package, including works due to start soon to upgrade infrastructure to connect to groundwater supplies in Warwick and Allora. The works should ease water supply pressure from industries, freeing up more supply for urban use.
The funding for the Toowoomba-to-Warwick water pipeline has been approved by the State Government and the planning is in the final stages of preparatory works for design, costing, surveying and geotechnical works. But that would only get the water to Warwick, leaving Stanthorpe high and dry.
Another avenue to increase water capacity has been to make it possible to access Leslie Dam’s so-called dead storage.
The $4.54 million upgrade to equipment at the dam has resulted in old pumps being replaced with more powerful and efficient units and a switchboard system to make it possible to access some of the dead storage during a drought. The council and Sunwater are collaborating to access the rest of the dead storage at the dam.
While the new pumps at Leslie Dam pump station have been installed successfully, finding out if they’re saving money on electricity compared to the 55-year-old pumps they have replaced isn’t that easy.
At the February 8 council meeting, Cr Stephen Tancred asked if it ticked another box in the council’s sustainability strategy but there was no simple answer. With changing from diesel generators to Ergon electricity and the water being pulled from deeper in the water column, getting an idea on the differences in consumption of power was quite involved.
The council has also committed to giving residents the power to monitor their own water usage easily. With the first wave of smart meters having been rolled out to at least 95 per cent of the Stanthorpe metered district, the first way the project is paying off is from better detection of leaks.
Meters will soon be installed on the rest of the Southern Downs region’s metered properties, but in the meantime the Stanthorpe roll-out has been deemed a success. Twenty-four water leaks were detected in the first week of operation and 60 leaks were detected in the first month. The volume of water lost to leaks, as detected by the smart meters, was in the order of 1 ML per month, a number the council expected to drop substantially as the detected leaks were repaired.
The following stage of the smart-meter program will mean that residents will be able to monitor their own water consumption behaviours in real time, with radio-transmitted information available via an online customer portal.
