July 17, 2020
South Burnett Mayor Brett Otto has moved to hose down concerns Kingaroy is running out of water.
It isn’t, and he has promised to issue an explanatory media release next week.
The issue arose after the Mayor spoke on ABC Radio RN on Wednesday morning which left some listeners with the impression Kingaroy was “running out of water” and could soon be in a worse position than Stanthorpe.
On Friday night – in a brief statement – a Council spokesperson said Mayor Otto wished to make it clear Kingaroy’s urban water supply was not at immediate risk of failure.
“Comments made in relation to the reported risk ratio pertain to medium term supply issues for Kingaroy as identified in the recently released Strategic Business Case as part of the Burnett Water Feasibility Study,” a Council spokesperson said.
“Mayor Brett Otto has spoken with the Minister’s representative and Council will continue working closely with the Government and key stakeholders on water security.
“A formal media statement will be made available next week.”
Cr Kathy Duff also provided some clarification:
“The information about Kingaroy’s water security came out of the public meeting held recently with the water study findings, and the report is on the Council website,” Cr Duff said.
“We do need to lobby hard for water security as it has been revealed that there are risks of Kingaroy facing what happened in Stanthorpe.
“The good thing about it is we now have facts to prove that we need support for more high priority water allocation and/or water infrastructure upgrades to ensure security of water into the future.”
At Wednesday’s monthly Council meeting, Water portfolio chair Cr Roz Frohloff said water levels at BP Dam were currently around 17.4 per cent and Boondooma Dam was at 35.9 per cent of capacity.
This is sufficient to maintain South Burnett water restrictions at Level 3, where they have been since March 2017.
