Point of view:                                                                                                                    A Travesty at Traveston.                                  ( Part  1) Peter Beattie's announcement to dam the Mary River at Traveston Crossing is an indictment to his ability to govern Queensland. His arrogance and contempt of the people in Queensland can only be compared to Howard's contempt in respect to I.R. laws. Both are acts of power-hungry individuals who have not considered the people affected by these decisions. All Queenslanders are being affected by Beattie's foot stamping war cry "I want my dam!" Of course, such effects mean nothing to an arrogant Beattie who uses the foolish defensive state- ment that South East Queensland voters want him to build the dam at Traveston. That is an absolute fallacy and Beattie knows it. Not even half of the S.E. Queensland population would be so callous as to condemn the Mary River valley property holders to lifelong suffering from being displaced by a Stalinistic government decision. For those people in the Mary River valley, I would like to assure you that Brisbane residents are mostly on your side, and we will suffer with you over this unforgivable governmental blunder. As on many times previously, Beattie's government has not been honest with Queenslanders. We have not been told the truth about the disaster which will befall the area once the dam has been built. * Queensland will lose some of the most fertile land in the state to inundation. * The site has been rejected twice previously in separate Government Environmental Reports. * Geologically, the site will be very shallow and will NOT hold water. * Evaporation and seepage will cause large losses of water. * The habitat of the Australian Lungfish (a 150 million year old living fossil) will be destroyed. * The dam will have a detrimental effect on the Mary River cod habitat, and could potentially    endanger the survival of the only population of genetically pure and wild stock in the World. * The dam will be a threat to the Mary River tortoise which is unique to this river. * The dam will cause the silting up of the Mary River mouth destroying the mullet fishing    industry. * The cost of the dam is estimated at $1.7 billion and rising. * Three other options which are cheaper and less likely to affect landowners have been    discarded by the Government. We also know that the Mary River valley electorate is non-Labor and the decision to build the dam is unlikely to have repercussions on any sitting member of State parliament. Wrong, Peter  Beattie! The whole of the Queensland population will be affected because you are going to spend our money on a dam which will do more harm than good and which will not solve our water problems for years if at all. Why aren't you considering other alternatives, cheaper or more effective alternatives? The proposed dam at Traveston is estimated to cost $1.7b, based on today's figures. Going by your government's abysmal record of building anything in Queensland at the set budget, I hazard a guess and will say that the completed dam will cost us double the figure you have nominated. That would make it a $3.4b white elephant. Furthermore, there are NO guarantees that the dam will hold water or will ever be full. A suitable alternative to both dams, Wyaralong and Traveston, would have been to install rain water tanks for every household in Queensland. For the estimated costs of the Traveston dam, you could supply 1,400,000 x 5,000 litre tanks. That is nearly one tank for every man, woman and child in Brisbane. The first rain fall would give immediate relief to our water problems and we would not have to wait for 5 years to witness any dubious benefits from your dam at Traveston.  You would secure the sanity of the people facing displacement in the Mary River valley, and last but not least, you would possibly save your government from an embarrassing defeat at the next election. I am certain that there would be several other options your government could utilise instead of con- demning the people of the Mary River valley to a life of total despair. On behalf of all the Queensland people with a conscience and whose money you are wasting, I would like you to seriously re-consider your decisions to build the two new dams. We really do not need two more empty dams in S.E. Queensland, but we do need some quick and permanent relief from the dramatic shortages of potable water. (webmaster, 8-7-2006) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: Point of View                                                Forward to: A Travesty at Traveston (Part 2)