Just what is the state government up to with our water?

Last September, member for Noosa Glen Elmes alerted the Coast to plans for desalination plants at Peregian and Marcoola.

“I have received specific advice that the locations being considered are Stradbroke Island, mouth of the Brisbane River, Bribie Island, Marcoola and Peregian Beach,” he said.

“The information provided to me comes from an impeccable source and I call on the deputy premier, Paul Lucas, to bring forward the release of the report and, more importantly, to discount possible locations such as Peregian and Marcoola.”

Premier Anna Bligh played down Mr Elmes’ claims, responding as follows: “The Queensland Water Commission is just doing its planning job and not committing the government. It has a draft desktop study which has identified a number of potential sites for further future investigation.

“These sites will be subject to further examination based on cost, power supply, and interconnection into existing water and power networks. While it is unlikely we will need to use these possible sites, a prudent government always plans over the horizon.’’

It turned out to be not much of a horizon.

Five months later, and with no discussion with either the Sunshine Coast Regional Council transitional committee, or its newly elected mayor, the Queensland Water Commission announced plans for six desalination plants, two of which would be built at Kawana and Marcoola.

And it turned out that the state government sent the Water Commission back to reconsider its options after its first report failed to include the Coast sites.

Few people would argue that desalination was not a better idea than building the Traveston dam.

Mayor Bob Abbot sees it as the lesser of two evils. He told a Save the Mary Valley protest meeting in Noosaville back in 2006 that he was not convinced about the environmental practicality of desalination.

The mayor has a point. The Gold Coast plant at Tugun will consume 200,000 megawatt hours of power a year. With the plant well on the way to completion, the premier has finally got the point, challenging the green energy industry to come up with a carbon-neutral fuel supply.

Mr Abbot argued, though, at that rally back in September 2006, that desalination could free up the billions of dollars that would be spent on the Traveston dam’s construction, providing an opportunity for the money to be redirected to bolstering inland regional economies in Queensland to lure growth away from the south-east corner.

It would be interesting to see that concept debated as part of the upcoming review of the South-East Queensland Growth Management strategy.

It would also be fascinating, in the interests of open government, for Ms Bligh to reveal the state’s “Plan B” for south-east Queensland’s water supply if the federal government refuses to approve construction of the Traveston dam.

Quite clearly, the construction of desalination plants with the capacity to produce twice the daily flows from Traveston, at a fraction of the cost, appears a better option than flooding one of the state’s most productive agricultural regions.

Ms Bligh has described the Tugun plant’s capacity of 125 megalitres a day as being sufficient to supply 900,000 homes. This compares with the 120 megalitres that would come from the Kawana and Marcoola sites, and the 70 megalitres Traveston would produce.

If that seems like a hell of a lot of water; imagine the number of homes that would require construction to justify the expense.

One thing is for certain: the Queensland government is not spending $9 billion on its South-East Queensland Water Grid to deliver idle capacity.

The money is going to have to come from somewhere.

In selling the plan, Queensland Water Commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy said it would “drought-proof” Queensland and end level-six water restrictions.

What she didn’t say was what this new abundant supply would cost households. Nor do we know if we will be charged just for the water we use, or whether we will also be slugged an infrastructure charge for the right to access it.

The Australian Services Union’s Queensland Services Branch wrote to the Premier on January 15, pointing out that while it supported the state controlling the supply of water, the model for its sale and delivery to the public was flawed.

The union said the five-step model mirrored that used for electricity and would result in substantial, unnecessary increases in the price of water.

And to think the stuff could once just fall from the sky, on to a roof, into a tank and out of a tap.