DAM PLAN CREATOR LIVES ON
AFTER 77 years in the grave, engineer ‘John Bradfield’ made a surprise appearance in Townsville to spruik the Revised Bradfield Scheme alongside Kennedy MP Bob Katter.
With a diorama, a friend of the Katters dressed up as the late John Bradfield, several Australian flags and a pointer, Mr Katter carefully explained that the Revised Bradfield Scheme would be of most benefit to North Queensland.
“We called it ‘revised’ because we didn’t want to send the water to Lake Eyre,” Mr Katter said.
The original Bradfield Scheme would have filled Lake Eyre from northern Queensland rivers.
“Instead we used the water on the great Mid-west plains of North Queensland, by going over the Great Dividing Range and gravity feeding the water down for irrigation use on this massive, beautiful, rich, black soil plain,” Mr Katter said.
He said other variations of the Bradfield scheme – LNP’S New Bradfield Scheme, NQ First’s Northern Bradfield Scheme and Labor’s yet-to-bebranded scheme – had stroyed the original vision.
Mr Katter said the latest incarnation, which includes building Hell’s Gates Dam to 320m – lower than the originally proposed 400m – was debelow par. “If these projects ever see the light of day, they will destroy everything that Bradfield and hundreds of others have been fighting for for decades,” Mr Katter said.
“With the Revised Bradfield
Scheme Hughenden, Richmond, Julia Creek and Cloncurry will likely go the same way as Griffith, Mareeba and Emerald whose population exploded after irrigation from 1500 to 20,000 plus.”