Meetings To Discuss Water Projects

At the site of the proposed Barlil Weir in July 2020 … from left, Adam and Hamish McVeigh, Damien Sippel, Stuart Nicholson and LNP Member for Flynn Ken O’Dowd (Photo: BIEDO)

UPDATE March 4 from the SBRC: The workshops scheduled for next March 7-8 have been postponed until further notice. This follows advice from the Premier preparing for anticipated weather impacts in South-East Queensland. Workshops will be rescheduled in due course.

March 2, 2022

South Burnett Regional Council is seeking more input from the community about three projects identified during the $2 million Burnett Water Feasibility Study before deciding if they should proceed to the next stage.

The study, funded by the Federal Government, began in December 2019.

Council has hired consultants KBR to conduct further investigations into three options which aim to improve water security in the South Burnett.

The Burnett Water Feasibility Study delivered the initial stages, completing a Strategic Business Case and a Draft Options Analysis.

Council is now seeking community input about how three of the these projects should progress:

Blackbutt – options for additional water supply;

Barlil and West Barambah weirs – consider interest in water supply from a new Barlil Weir and Barambah Creek Weir; and

Gordonbrook Dam – converting use of the dam from urban water supply to irrigation supply.

A Council spokesperson said KBR would be holding workshops to seek feedback, particularly to assess if there is sufficient community support to proceed to the next stage of business cases for infrastructure development.

Three workshops have been scheduled around the region.

Monday, March 7- POSTPONED

Blackbutt Water Supply Options – 11:30am at Hotel Radnor, Blackbutt

Barlil and West Barambah weirs – 4:00pm at the Murgon RSL Club

Tuesday, March 8 – POSTPONED

Gordonbrook Dam for Irrigation – 9:00am at the Kingaroy Town Hall

“All interested parties are encouraged to come along and participate,” the Council spokesperson said.

The meetings will assess demand for the water and what prices customers would be willing to pay.

For further information or to register interest, contact (07) 4189-9100 or email waterstudy@sbrc.qld.gov.au

UPDATE: South Burnett Regional Council postponed these meetings on Friday, March 4 to new dates yet to be determined due to concerns over flooding.

*** * ***

Information from the SBRC:

Blackbutt Water Supply Options

This project is investigating options to provide new water to a highly fertile agricultural area. This will consider a wide range of options which will include greater utilisation of the Wivenhoe pipeline and identify any associated infrastructure requirements to deliver water from the centralised off-take to individual water users.

Barlil and West Barambah Weirs

This project is to further investigate building a new weir on Barambah Creek to increase water reliability of existing allocations and/or provide new water allocations. This will also improve alignment of agricultural water allocations to demand in areas containing fertile soils. Several potential solutions are being included in the project such as the construction of Barlil Weir (135km upstream of its convergence with the Burnett River and about 8km north-west of Murgon). Barlil Weir could have a capacity of 1000ML and annual yield of 3000ML.

Gordonbrook Dam For Irrigation

Gordonbrook Dam is a 6600ML storage that currently provides urban water to Kingaroy. However, there are significant water treatment issues when the water falls below 50 per cent. Therefore, this project will investigate and determine the best future use of the dam, including assessing the viability of converting Gordonbrook Dam to irrigation-only use in the medium and long term.

Related articles: