Bore-derline impossible

Tweed Council takes stand against water extractors

TWEED Shire Council has taken a stand against the booming bottled water industry by rejecting the expansion of an extraction business.

The green-leaning council voted to quash plans to expand a bore water siphoning works at Urliup, close to the Queensland border.

The proposal was rejected on the grounds it would increase truck traffic on rural roads, but Deputy Mayor Chris Cherry said there were also en- vironmental concerns.

She said the decision reflected locals’ worries about the practice of siphoning bore water in the Tweed and hinted the vote could have a strong bearing on two new water extraction applications set to be heard later this year.

“I think there’s a huge amount of community concern,” she said.

“One of the biggest concerns are the huge trucks on our roads. It (the decision) is a bit of a message saying we aren’t going to allow open slather here.”

Urliup water miner Matthew Karlos said he would fight the council in court to have the decision overturned.

“Even if it had got voted through it still would have been a long process,” Mr Karlos said.

“We can just go to court and deal with the facts.

“It is what it is. We’ve got no choice (but to go to court). It’s what we’ve been planning for.”

The Karlos family’s proposal to upgrade Urliup Road to allow 19-metre trucks to safely transport water from their property had been with council since 2015.

The upgrade would have cost Mr Karlos $260,000. He currently uses 5m trucks to cart water.

Mr Karlos argued his business would be unviable if the council did not allow him to run the bigger trucks.

He argued that he regularly saw 21m trucks using Urliup Road.

But Ms Cherry said: “There was a very strong submission from the staff saying that they had looked at the work and that they didn’t believe the road could handle 19m trucks.”

Two other applications for bore water siphoning operations at Dungay and Uki have been lodged with the council and according to Ms Cherry, both are similar in their re- quests for the use of 19m trucks on narrow country roads.

Ms Cherry said she hoped the decision sent a message to multinational companies such as Coca-Cola that might want to harvest Tweed water.

According to market research firm IBIS-World, the Australian bottled water industry is worth $736 million and is projected to grow to $826.8 million over the next five years.

Mount Franklin, made by Coca-Cola Amatil, is the most popular brand, followed by Coles Natural Spring Water.