By Jenel Hunt
The Southern Downs Regional Council has voted unanimously to support the contents of a notice of motion submitted by Mayor Melissa Hamilton in relation to water security for the Southern Downs.
Cr Hamilton, although she initiated the proceedings, declared a conflict of interest ‘out of an abundance of caution’ and did not vote, accepting there might be a perception in the community that she had a conflict in matters relating to Emu Swamp Dam.
Cr Hamilton had, before her election to the council, written blog posts on the Protect Our Water website where she had been critical of the decisions with regard to council involvement in a proposed irrigators’ dam in the Granite Belt region.
“I have advocated that council should not be involved in the Granite Belt Irrigation Project – Emu Swamp Dam – because the council and ratepayers were exposed to significant risk of cost overruns in the project and because council was not getting the full value of the town water allocation in the deal that was done with the project proponent,” she said.
“The project is now on hold, the proponent is in liquidation, and in any future iteration of the project those particular issues may not be relevant.”
She said the motion was restricted to answering the Queensland Government Department of Regional Manufacturing, Development and Water’s request for confirmation about the council’s position on the items listed within the Draft Southern and Darling Downs Regional Water Assessment.
“This does not form our wider water strategy,” she said.
“This does not form our position on any one option or other. It is simply around the options that were discussed by the department at that presentation [to council] and the input they have had during the public consultation phase.”
Cr Joel Richters said he believed all the council was doing was signalling that the three items in the draft RWA report were things the council would like the state government to pursue.
Cr Sheryl Windle moved the motion for the council to continue to advocate for water security in the Southern Downs region on three fronts.
The first was to acknowledge the cost benefit of evaporation covers for on-farm dam storages and support advocacy by council for funding assistance for the region’s horticultural producers from the Queensland and Federal Governments.
The council also supported a detailed business case for the Warwick-to-Stanthorpe pipeline being advanced as soon as possible, and no later than within two years, to allow the council to assess the options for improved urban water security for Stanthorpe.
Thirdly, the council acknowledged and encouraged the further project development work in relation to Emu Swamp Dam to be undertaken by the state government.
