Don’t write-off vital dam yet

THE initial shelving of the Nullinga Dam has the ugly fingerprints of environmentalists all over it.

Building Queensland says the project on the Walsh River does not stacking up economically, yet there is a major sugarcane grower and processor prepared to underwrite the $425 million project.

It appears that the green movement in the suburbs of Laborheld seats in Brisbane are interfering from afar as part of their policy of no more dams.

Don’t greenies eat food? How are farmers of the Far North expected to grow top quality produce and farm cattle and other livestock without an adequate water supply?

It is obvious Tinaroo Dam is in trouble so a back-up supply is vital.

The dam also is required as a future bulk water supply for Cairns

On Friday the Cairns Post revealed that the project had been shelved indefinitely because there was not enough demand.

Has the government ignored a pledge by the country’s largest sugar grower, MSF Sugar, that it would underwrite the project because it was “vital” to the company’s Tablelands expansion plans?

At the weekend Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt scrambled to provide assurances that the $4.4 million business case was still to be released and it would take into consideration MSF Sugar’s pledge.

Yesterday the government and Building Queensland said the business case would take into account MSF Sugar’s promise. Yet that report is now not due until next year.

Friday’s revelation created unnecessary confusion and uncertainty. Nick Dalton Deputy editor