Leyburn and Killarney's water problems - just another Beattie fiction ...
... that is the question.
Excerpt from the Courier Mail:
Towns face drought death blow
26 April 2007
Two towns on the Darling Downs face evacuation because they have almost run out of water and cannot afford to indefinitely cart supplies.
Senior state bureaucrats have discussed the possibility of moving residents from Leyburn, population 200, and Killarney, home to 1500 people.
One of Leyburn's two bores has run dry and there are fears the other could follow.
It is costing $8000 a week to cart water to Killarney, which is at the source of the Murray Darling river system.
Water Services Association executive director Ross Young said the Government had the power to move people.
...
See - Water problems - fact or fiction?
No-one denies that SEQ is in water difficulties - worsened by the current drought and the lack of infrastructure planning by governments at ALL levels.
However, are these more scare tactics from the State government?
"We don't want to truck in water any more so we will forcibly remove you from the land. But if you drink recycled water, you can stay."
Some people say that evacuation has never been discussed at the local level as an option and that the shire as a whole will not run out of water.
The Council is in the media saying that Brisbane will run out of water first:
The Warwick Shire Council says suggestions that some towns on Queensland's Darling Downs will be evacuated because they are running out of water are nonsense.
See - ABC News - evacuation claims 'nonsense'.
Earlier Councillor Bellingham said the Warwick Shire council had never discussed evacuating towns.
"If we are not able to support Killarney I don't know what we're going to do with the rest of the shire," he said.
"Brisbane is going to run out of water before we're going to run out of water here.
"I want to assure the people of both towns there is no possibility, as far as I'm concerned, as far as any thought of evacuation. In my view that's just silly."
See - ABC News - Senior state bureaucrats' comments 'silly'.
So who's playing games with whom?
With Local Government Minister Andrew Fraser quickly hosing down suggestions of an evacuation, it looks like a variation on the usual Beattie-Bligh two-step - this time it's the senior bureaucrats-Fraser two-step to ratchet up the fear in the community ...
posted by Concerned Ratepayer at 10:35 AM
1 Comments:
Excerpt from the Courier Mail in response to the Qld government's denials of evacuation plans:
Government in denial
David Fagan
Editor
27 April 2007
As in the Kremlin, what's left unsaid is at least as important as what is said in Queensland's water bureaucracy.
In dancing around yesterday's Page 1 report that State Government bureaucrats were considering evacuation of drought-stricken towns, Premier Peter Beattie said he couldn't help it if some "drunk" rang The Courier-Mail with information.
The tip-off for this story didn't come from some drunk. It came first from a government contractor and then from a credible source personally aware of discussions within government about the economic worth of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a week to truck water to very small towns.
Our reporter Tuck Thompson checked this with a second source within government and then took the usual road of asking questions to establish the facts.
We asked a spokesman for Local Government and Planning Minister Andrew Fraser this question: Are there any contingency plans in place or being developed to evacuate towns with no water if required?
The first answer was: "There are no plans in place to evacuate any of these townships. Councils have provided details of long-term remedial measures they intend to introduce to ensure adequate water supplies to these towns in the future."
And then, two hours later, came an amended response: "Councils have provided details of long-term remedial measures they intend to introduce to ensure adequate water supplies to these towns in the future."
Spot the difference?
The omission second time around appeared to be a clear denial of the sentence stating there are no plans in place to evacuate townships.
The Government's responses yesterday were all couched in denying any town would be evacuated. But the Government could not rule out that the matter had been discussed by senior staff, as we reported.
David Fagan,
Editor
11:57 AM, April 27, 2007
Post a Comment
<< Home