Point of View                                                          A Travesty at Traveston.                                  ( Part  2) We have taken the liberty of re-publishing here an extremely accurate and enlightening article detailing the unfortunate situation developing if the Queensland Government will persist with its ridiculous mega dam on the beautiful Mary River at Traveston Crossing. We urge you all, whether you live in Queensland or not, to take notice of the dramatic developments happening here. This whole fiasco could be re-played soon at a river near YOU!                                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                                   Paradise lost is fate for the Mary River!                                             (by MALCOLM McCOSKER published in "Country Life") AT A GLANCE * Mistakes evident in the building of Paradise Dam are being ignored in the Beattie Government's headlong rush to build a mega dam on the Mary River. * Mary Valley landholders to be displaced by the Traveston dam can expect more of the standover tactics imposed on Burnett River landowners who were displaced by Paradise dam. * Environment disasters like the expected lungfish extinction and giant fish kills in Paradise Dam could be repeated as the Traveston dam begins to submerge and rot timber and other vegetation on these now fertile farmlands. HIGH on a hillside stands a concrete bench beside a post embossed with the words 'fish cleaning table'. Funny place for a fish cleaning table one might ask. But the good folk who built it on what was the planned shoreline of Paradise Dam on the Burnett River could not have known the dam would shrink to its present foetid watercourse with less than 20 percent of intended dam capacity. Neither the Queensland Beattie Government that approved and bankrolled Paradise Dam, nor the contractors who started building it in November 2003, can be blamed for the series of low rainfall years that have starved the once mighty 300,000 megalitre dam of runoff water. But the lessons of its shortcomings don't seem at all heeded by the Beattie Government. While Mr Beattie continues to hold up Paradise Dam as a shining success story for his water policies, it has been listed by the World Wildlife Fund (world commission on dams) as one of the 6th worst environmentally sound dams in the world today. Instead, that Government now is barging ahead like a bull at a gate with another potential dam disaster, this time the vastly despised and feared Traveston Crossing dam on the Mary River. This ill conceived monstrosity will drown some of Eastern Australia's most productive and beautiful farmland and displace many hundreds of people who have come to know and love Mary as their dream home. Small wonder that opponents of the Traveston dam - and that's everyone within shouting distance of the proposed site - have created the compelling slogan - "Save the Mary River from a fate worse than Paradise." A visit to Paradise dam during the present drought is a depressing experience. Floating on what little water remains in its upper reaches is a dense raft of Salvinea molesta, an aquatic weed of national significance. On the muddy banks far below the fish cleaning table are bleached elliptical shells of freshwater mussels, long dead from lack of water, with their innards picked out by egrets and blue cranes. Further along are skeletal forests of dead trees, some clustered with bird's nests, for in the rush to build Paradise much shoreline timber was left, not cleared as was the normal practice with earlier dam giants such as Somerset and Wivenhoe on the Brisbane River. This rotting timber is a prime suspect in drastically lowered drought-time oxygen levels in the water that is reflected in enormous fish kills. On April 11, 2006 a fish kill was reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by Sun Water, with up to 1000 dead fish adjacent to the dam wall. No identified cause was determined but it was 'postulated' that a lack of dissolved oxygen in the water was a possibility. An ever more massive fish kill was observed in the Mingo Crossing area further upstream where the thousands of dead fish were 'just too many' for the EPA to clean up. The oxygen starved water also holds a death threat for the unique and ancient Queensland lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri). It now seems clear that a fish ladder engineered by Burnett Water Ltd to facilitate movement of the lungfish is not working. Fast forward to the proposed Traveston dam and we discover the Mary River also has a thriving lungfish population, as well as the freshwater snapping turtle that been condemned in Paradise. Other parallels are even more alarming. The Traveston Crossing Dam would have average depth of not more than five metres with a few deeper holes here and there. That creates a classic scenario for massive summer evaporation and a resulting mudflat soup that could choke any living creature trapped in the mire. Then there are the human hurts, endured by the silent and frightened people who have leased back some of their former grazing and farming land on the shorelines of Paradise. Victimisation, bullying and thinly veiled threats are foisted on many of these people to prevent them from going public with the bitter facts. But the hurts are real enough. We met some people who cannot be identified and gleaned a remarkable tale of deception, changing rules, shuffling of fees and charges and double standards that are thwarting their best and honest endeavours to make a go on the land they love. These people tell of having no riparian rights to the water that laps the exposed land they have leased back; they have been requested to put in easements to the waterline but still gain no riparian water rights; they must pay rates on land that is submerged by water, some have had to pay for the movement of their homes from one part of property they once owned to a new site approved by the Government, but without any financial assistance. These people also are held responsible for weeds that emerge when seeds are washed down the river. When the Government acquired land from former owners it was termed 'valued buy out' based on a valuation - probably pretty conservative at that. Trouble is, some landholders had to wait up to 10 months before the Government came up with any money, and when it arrived there was no adjustment for land price inflation measured over that time. Some displaced landholders are asking whether the public servant negotiators who brokered faster buy outs were rewarded with slush fund commissions. Naturally, nobody will say. Then there's the issue of who will buy whatever Paradise water becomes available. Many reports say water is too costly for cane farmers it was originally intended to supply. This means the only people with sufficient cash to pay the charges will be mining companies, power stations and value adding industry. Consider the implication ahead if the Traveston dam goes ahead. It would be twice the size of Paradise at a proposed 670,000ml. Because of its huge surface area and shallow depth, the Traveston dam could become an environmental time bomb, with fish kills in dry seasons that would far eclipse the Paradise kills. There is little likelihood that shoreline timber would be removed before the waters rose, so more rotting vegetation, more oxygen starvation and more putrid dead fish genocide are on the agenda. Then there could be a repeat of the 'thimble and pea' trickery that is reported by some former landowners on Paradise. Already, some Mary River landholders are being offered buyout amounts that are well below real land valuation. There are reports of threats to speed up selling and overt pressure to accept Government offers 'or else'. Such claims of course are vigorously denied by the negotiators, but in some homestead office safes there are reported to be tape recordings that would prove otherwise. One of the heart tugging sights that reflects the lunacy of the Traveston proposal is a hardwood plantation on a slope near Kandanga destined for inundation. Somebody planted those trees in good faith as a long term investment in reafforestation, a sensible plan to keep Australia's wonderful eucalypt hardwoods available for future generations. Now the Beattie government says they must die, along with the dreams of what could be a lost tribe of Mary Valley residents! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: HOME      Back to: Point of View     Back to: A Travesty (1)       Forward to: A Travesty (3)