The Burnett River Dam: the politics of environmental management in Qld

The Boardman Report recommended long-term studies of the Queensland Lungfish Neoceratodus forsteri and the undescribed freshwater turtle Elseya sp. Boardman recognised not only the significance of these species but also that the cumulative effects of current and future impoundments on the Burnett River were more serious concerns for the survival of these species than the impact of Walla Weir alone.

There are two published papers that I am aware of; Freshwater Turtle Populations (Limpus et al 2002) and Ecology and demography of the Queensland lungfish in the Burnett River (S. Brooks and P. Kind, May 2002).

Limpus et al notes a recruitment problem with Elseya sp. turtles due to the lack of juvenile turtles of this species being captured during the study.

A significant finding of Brookes and Kind was that lungfish are negatively impacted by impoundments as the lungfish require shallow, vegetated water conditions to spawn. These conditions do not occur in impoundments and any further reduction in flow will destroy the areas currently remaining.

Professor Jean Joss of The Australian Lungfish Research Centre says this situation is exacerbated by the fact that lungfish return to the same spawning site year after year and if the site is unsuitable they will not lay eggs. Thus, in an impoundment situation lungfish will not breed again and as they can live to 100 years the problem will go unnoticed until the population is in serious decline, which will be too late.

Following construction of Walla Weir, the Queensland government has begun preconstruction activities for the largest impoundment yet on the Burnett River. The river and its tributaries already have 32 dams and weirs restricting natural flow and the proposed Burnett River dam will potentially impound another 45km of the river's main channel. This will mean that 75 per cent of the lower Burnett will be impounded with flows reduced significantly.

In January 2003 the Threatened Species Scientific Advisory Committee recommended to the Federal Minister of Environment, David Kemp, that the lungfish be listed as a vulnerable threatened species under the EPBC Act 1999 - a listing that takes into account fragmented habitat, small genetic diversity and degraded spawning sites.

The document commissioned by the Qld EPA has been made cabinet-in-confidence by the state government. This means it is not accessible to the public under Freedom of Information law in Queensland.

Recent media reports quote from this document to the effect that it offers similar water infrastructure benefits to those claimed for the dam by using existing impoundments and improved water management techniques. This led to the Queensland Environment Minister, Dean Wells, stating in public that subsequent economic or environmental reports regarding a particular infrastructure project are only useful for future projects "because an election promise overrides all other considerations".

This is a disastrous situation. No research, no matter how significant, is to be considered once an election promise is made, even if it has been established that a project will have serious negative environmental impacts and an alternative solution has been identified!

The Burnett River Dam is of special concern as it involves the destruction of lungfish spawning habitat and the possible extinction of a direct surviving link between water and land animals that has existed unchanged for 100 million years.

This is an issue of international significance.