Entsch not satisfied at hydro cost

A NORTH Queensland MP says he will pursue the development of the Tully- Millstream hydro- electricity scheme by seeking an independent assessment of its cost and feasibility.

It comes as the project’s former planning engineer says the cost will be “vastly lower” than the $ 4.2 billion estimated by state- owned generator Stanwell and announced by Mulgrave Labor MP and former treasurer Curtis Pitt in State Parliament last year.

The Federal Government had been set to announce funding for another feasibility last August but then cancelled an event amid the fallout from the citizenship scandal.

Cairns- based Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said Mr Pitt’s figures lacked credibility and he would continue to lobby for an independent assessment funded by the Federal Government.

The federal LNP MP said the dual roles held by Stanwell chairman Ralph Craven, who is also chairman of Genex Power, which is proposing another hydro scheme in North Queensland, also raised questions of a conflict of interest.

“I think the best way we can do this is get an independent study done,” Mr Entsch said.

A feasibility study into the project, near Ravenshoe, was undertaken in 1987 but the scheme was abandoned when the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area was declared.

Professor Simon Bartlett, a former Queensland Electricity Corporation planning engineer for the Tully- Millstream Investigation, said a May 1989 costing was $ 549.5 million and adjusted for inflation would now be $ 1.2 billion.

“This is a vastly lower than the $ 3 billion to $ 4.2 billion figure advised by Curtis Pitt in Queensland Parliament,” Prof Bartlett said.

But Stanwell is standing by its estimate and denies it has a conflict of interest.

A spokesman said Stanwell’s “preliminary estimate”, done in 2012, was based on the original project design in the feasibility study from the late 1980s.

“There is no conflict of interest. Stanwell is not undertaking any work or investigations,” the Stanwell spokesman said of Mr Craven’s dual roles.

The Stanwell spokesman said that if the scheme was to proceed as originally envisaged, the project would need to address major environmental issues, including construction within and inundation of a World Heritage area, and modification of water flows in the Tully River.

Mr Entsch said a balance needed to be stuck between impacting part of the World Heritage area and developing hydro electricity.