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admin May 19th, 2008
The opening of Lenthalls Dam Crest gates, scheduled for Wed 21st May, was arranged by State Govt departments not by WBW, to my knowledge, and most definitely not by Council.
Council does have many community buildings and I defend its right to do so. May I remind the community that if Council owns something that means you own it. Council is a public entity so when we ‘own’ things it is on behalf of everyone in the community and the community buildings are for the community benefit. Most Hervey Bay ‘public buildings’ are leased and managed by community groups who manage to run the buildings at a profit to themselves rather than a cost and with little outlay from the Council budget. While this system has some flaws I think the model is generally a ‘win win’ one and of benefit to everyone. There is no doubt in my mind that we need more community buildings not less here in the Bay. If you are a member of a community group and wish to hold a meeting or function it is practically impossible to find cheap space when and where you need it. Try booking a place into the Urangan Community centre for instance. So yes we need halls and buildings and we need them to be cheaply accessible to our community for the many fun and important functions that these groups provide for all of us.
Now just a personal comment on our Planning and Development Meeting from last Wednesday. Yes I was the only lonely ‘NO’ vote against a recommendation to build 250 units on a block of land at Urangan. The complex comprises 3 building up to 6 storeys high and will require a double basement carpark to accommodate nearly 400 spaces. The whole block including adjacent blocks, has a Natural Area overlay covering it. I personally felt that the application was over development for that site and we now have set a precedent which will threaten adjoining blocks that also have a Natural Area overlay on them. Specifically the large block on the corner of Boat Harbour Drive and the Esplanade at the marina. This block is covered with beautiful old trees!
I fail to understand how a Natural Area overlay can be ignored to the extent that I feel it has been. Maybe I’m missing something and can’t interpret our Planning Scheme properly but I had a bad night on Wednesday night worrying about what the future holds for Hervey Bay in terms of development, now we have our new Council.
So finally a plea from me. I am thinking of starting up a branch of the ‘Save our Suburbs’ group locally. http://www.sos.org.au/new_home.html
We could possibly call it ‘SAVE OUR BAY’ but anything will do really. Maybe Maryborough residents and residents that live rurally would also be keen to join so we would need a generic name.
The aim would be to lobby Government in terms of development issues and to ask that community consultation is increased and that ‘urban consolidation’ policies be reviewed to ensure that they meet the outcomes they are designed to meet, without destroying or negatively impacting on the lifestyle of existing residents within our community. The primary purpose of the group would be to promote sustainable development.
I anticipate lobbying etc would be done primarily electronically but if we could get many members we could have a very strong voice. Meetings and the associated needed time commitments would be rare as we could communicate via email. I am happy to start to organise this if there is enough interest so please email me and let me know if you are interested as soon as you can please. Email to ssuuee@bigpond.net.au
I would also ask that if you don’t want to join a group an email to all the Councillors outlining your thoughts about development and Letters to the Editor may be a good idea also.
Cheers and thanks for reading this, Sue
- General News
- Comments(1)
The opening of Lenthalls Dam was a farce as the Lenthalls Dam Gates are still not operating as desiged. The funds expended on the new infrastructure ( completed 2007) are wasted if the gates cannot be relied upon to release environmental flow into the Burrum River as designed. The gates cost around 12 Million and the total infrastructure cost has been $21 Million wasted. The public expect much more from Wide Bay Water than this sort of waste and much more of council than to have let this happen.
Sue we know that you have a concern for the environment and for accountability - what can you tell us about the cost of repairs ( currently being undertaken )to the gates, who is paying - is this another cost to be added to the rates bill in water charges next year????
Our family upstream of the failed gates were put at risk in Febuary as water backed up - this is the real story and only reported by ABC:
Resident fears dam gates risk flooding
Updated Wed May 21, 2008 8:25am AEST
• Map: Hervey Bay 4655
A land-holder upstream of a major dam south-west of Hervey Bay says multi-million dollar barriers on the storage are broken, putting her family at risk of flooding.
Queensland Deputy Premier Paul Lucas will officially open the $16 million project at Lenthalls Dam, which is designed to more than double the storage’s capacity.
In what is claimed to be an Australian first, the two metre high crest gates sink when the dam reaches capacity to prevent flooding upstream and provide for environmental flows.
But Esther Allan says in February the gates jammed, causing water to back up onto her property.
“This is an extremely expensive piece of infrastructure. Ratepayers paid for this and their expectation would be that it would be operable,” she said.
“If it wasn’t, we need to know why - not only because our family’s safety was put at risk, but because ratepayers expect to get a result from the infrastructure they pay for.”
The local government corporation that runs Lenthalls Dam says the gates do not work, but it was monitoring the rising water.
Wide Bay Water general manager David Wiskar says adjustments were needed during the dam’s commissioning and are continuing.
“The gates were all needing some fine-tuning. At the moment we were able to complete that tuning on three of the gates,” he said.
“There’s two that remain to be done, but we’re waiting until the level in the dam falls to an adequate level to [do] those final two.”