PARADISE DAM GREEN CREDENTIALS CONFIRMED

A Commonwealth Government Audit of Paradise Dam, south-west of Bundaberg, has confirmed the dam is complying with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

Water Minister Craig Wallace said the audit report confirmed what the State Government had said since the dam was constructed in 2005 - that all steps have been taken to ensure it is environmentally responsible.

Mr Wallace said that although the audit report noted a partial compliance regarding the Paradise Dam fishway system, it noted that this was due to drought conditions and low dam levels.

“Paradise Dam has good green credentials,” Mr Wallace said. “It has a fishway system to allow upstream and downstream fish migration and a hydro power station designed to produce clean energy for the State’s electricity grid,” he said.

Mr Wallace said the dam’s upstream fishway was working well – with recent monitoring by the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries finding 112,000 fish were collected in this fishway over seven days.

However, the Commonwealth audit found the downstream fishway could not transfer fish downstream due to low dam levels caused by drought conditions.

The downstream fishway is designed to operate when the dam reaches around 57% capacity yet the Commonwealth audit was carried out in June 2007 when it was at 9%.

Mr Wallace said strong inflows into the dam in recent weeks now had the dam’s level at 44%, with further inflows still occurring.

“Paradise Dam is a strategic piece of water infrastructure that will enable the further growth of the Wide Bay Region by underpinning urban, industrial and agricultural water security for years to come,” Mr Wallace said.

“SunWater has advised me it will be announcing increases to water allocations for farmers in the next few days thanks to much healthier dam levels,” he said.

Media inquiries: Paul Childs, Craig Wallace’s office, on 0407 131 654.