Boring budgets
Back in 2021 POW! was pressing Council to answer questions about SDRC’s involvement in Emu Swamp Dam. In February 2021, March 2021 and June 2021 we posted a series of questions in flyers and on our website.
In September 2021 SDRC issued its own “Factsheet” in relation to Emu Swamp Dam. While it did not address many of our questions, it did try to explain why Council had decided to buy in as an investor in Emu Swamp Dam.
Tomorrow SDRC will table the draft budget at a special Council meeting. We all know that budgets are boring. And boring places are often a good place to bury inconvenient facts.
Mayor Pennisi, as he has made very clear, will not consider any other option for water security for the Granite Belt “while Emu Swamp Dam is on the table.” With a tripling of costs, and no committed funding from State or Federal governments I personally would now consider it to have fallen off the table, bounced along the floor and headed out the door. But then I’m a realist when it comes to finances.
Those in the Council who support Emu Swamp Dam could probably not be described as realists. For a reality check, let’s look back at what the SDRC “Factsheet” said about why Emu Swamp Dam was preferable to a pipeline from Connolly Dam to Stanthorpe. It said
Initial assessments of Connolly Dam suggest a cost of $20M to meet necessary safety upgrades.
Yikes! $20 million is certainly a significant and scary number for ratepayers. Maybe not compared to the incredible risks of being part of the construction and ownership of a private dam, but still.
Fast forward to this week’s draft budget and we can now see the estimated costs for the Connolly Dam safety upgrades (page 9). A total of $1.6 million. While this is still a significant sum it is nowhere even close to the “estimated” $20 million. Will the Mayor correct the “Factsheet” with a public announcement? Probably not.
As to the $300,000 estimated for safety upgrades for Storm King Dam, if our Council hadn’t wasted nearly $150,000 of ratepayers’ money on legal bills for documents for Emu Swamp Dam that were never even signed then they would have covered half of that already.
Will we ever get an apology for the ratepayer money that has been wasted on a project that does nothing to drought-proof the Granite Belt? State Government modelling shows that Emu Swamp Dam would have been empty in the last drought. A pipeline from Warwick would drought-proof Stanthorpe, but for some reason it has no support from Mayor Pennisi. I wonder why.
6 June 2023