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Proposed Traveston dam Site. Credit: patrickmccully/ flickr

A decision on whether the Queensland Government’s controversial Traveston Dam will go ahead will be made within a few days.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett told Channel Ten’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday November 8 that he would “…make a proposed decision over the next week,” adding he would, “take account not only of what the department brings forward to me, but of the expert scientific advice and of the public submissions themselves.”

The Queensland Government’s proposed $1.8 billion project to dam the Mary River at Traveston Crossing, north of Brisbane, has been met with opposition from environmentalists, residents and water experts who dispute the claims made by the Government that the dam would provide enough water to alleviate severe drought conditions and provide water security to major population centres such as Brisbane.

The proposed dam will also come under pressure as a court case concerning the Paradise Dam on the Burnett River, 35km northwest of Biggenden, southeast Queensland, resumes this week to look into the efficacy of technology to transport fish over dam walls.

Amid claims by experts that the technology wasn’t working, the case will have a bearing on the Traveston issue as the same fishway methods will be used to transport endangered fish. Working fishway technology is one of the 1200 conditions imposed on the project by Queensland’s coordinator-general.

Preliminary Finding

The Minister acknowledged the contentious nature of the project by saying he would release a preliminary finding.

“I know there are very strong feelings in Queensland and I think it’s important to know that I will make a proposed decision over the next week,” he said.

“The matters have just come to me now. And in doing that I’ll take account not only of what the department brings forward to me, but of the expert scientific advice and the public submissions themselves.”

Environmentalists remain hopeful of a positive outcome. Save The Mary River (STMR) president Glenda Pickersill told the Brisbane Times that an 30,000 email campaign targeting Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Mr Garrett, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and her Environment Minister Kate Jones had shown the extent of the discontent surrounding the dam issue.

”Our support is not only local. The large number of Brisbane addresses on these letters shows the extent to which people in Anna Bligh’s backyard disapprove of the project,” she said.

The prime minister, on a visit to Hervey Bay in Queensland last week, met with anti-dam protesters and said he understood local uproar over the dam issue.

“I understand full well local sensitivities on this,” he told people outside a health forum in Hervey Bay.

Traveston Protest, Parliament House,Qld. Credit: STMRCG.

“I grew up not a long way from here, a few hours south, and as a kid I used to go swimming in the Mary River. So I know something of how this is felt in the local community.”

However he said he had faith in Mr Garrett deciding the outcome based on evidence presented before him.

“What the environment minister has before him is a matter on which he’s got to make an independent decision on its environmental merits, and Peter Garrett is a minister of great integrity,” the prime minister said.

“Under the law of Australia, it’s important for him, it’s essential for him to make an unfettered, independent environmental choice, that’s what’s required under the statutes of Australia, and that’s what will occur.”

Minister Garrett told the Ten Network he would release a statement of reasons accompanying his decision.

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