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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Friday, 15 January 2016

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Hunter River shows watertight case for dams

Flooding in NSW this month should be another timely reminder to build more dams. Building this water infrastructure nationwide is a no-brainer, but the example of the Hunter River Catchment is stunning considering it was only in April 2015 that Dungog was smashed by floods. Houses were swept away leaving three people dead and the small town resembling a “war zone”. Now only months later, the State Emergency Service issued an evacuation notice for low-lying homes in the township of Dungog and for riverside towns such as Raymond Terrace, where the Williams River joins the Hunter River.

Several proposed dams such as the Tillegra Dam on the Williams River could have prevented costly flood damage in Dungog and all other towns hit by floods throughout the Hunter River Catchment, while providing water security in times of drought. In 2010, then-NSW Premier Kristina Keneally cancelled the proposed 450 gigalitre (GL) Tillegra Dam after much pressure from the environmental lobby and the No Tillegra Dam Group. And in August 2015 Hunter Water sold the land set aside for the dam to private landholders, meaning future governments will have to acquire the land again for the dam to go ahead.

In 1936 the NSW Minister for Agriculture Mr Hugh Main said that a dam on the Hunter River at Moonan Flat would be built but could not indicate when work would start. It was not built, but downstream about 30 kilometres to the southwest, construction on the Glenbawn Dam began in 1948; it opened in 1958. Then in 1987 it was enlarged to a storage capacity of 750 GL from the original 300 GL design to provide more water and improve flood mitigation.

The Dams already in the Hunter River Catchment have helped reduce the severity of flooding in recent decades. No subsequent flood has ever unleashed the damage that occurred in the massive flood of February 1955. The 1955 Maitland Flood was the first Australian natural disaster to be broadcast by the media on an international scale and was one of our worst natural disasters. A total of 25 lives were lost and 40,000 people were evacuated. The main streets of Maitland became creeks of rapidly flowing water, damaging homes and businesses, with 7,000 buildings and homes damaged in the Maitland/Singleton area alone. Livestock losses were as much as 100,000.

The proposed Kerrabee Dam on the Goulburn River (a major tributary of the Hunter River) was to be built in the early 1980s at the junction with the Merriwa River, but the plan was cancelled with the area reserved as the Goulburn River National Park in 1983.

Even several smaller dams on the many tributaries of the Hunter River, such as Lostock Dam (opened in 1971) on the Paterson River, can help provide flood mitigation and additional water storage for drought conditions. Several such dams should be investigated along with a few extra larger dams. The choice is simple: a) more dams, plentiful water for economic prosperity and flood protection, or b) austerity forcing reduced water usage (as evidenced post July 1982 when users-pays water was introduced to the Hunter), and flood damage when it rains cats and dogs.

This infrastructure along with levee banks must be built nationwide. The benefit of additional water to expand agricultural production and industry along with flood protection will pay for the cost of dam construction many times over.

Click here for a free copy of the CEC’s blueprint for the economic development of Australia, “The Infrastructure Road to Recovery”, as well as the current issue of the Australian Alert Service magazine, which reports on the need for more dam infrastructure in the Hunter Valley.

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All electoral content is authorised by National Secretary, Craig Isherwood, 595 Sydney Rd, Coburg VIC 3058.