12:00a.m. 11th October 2008

| By Mark Bode

Mayor Bob Abbot has warned Sunshine Coast residents to brace themselves for high-level water restrictions after admitting he feels powerless to stop the state government from pillaging our water.

The government announced on Thursday that it plans to draw 60 megalitres of water a day from the Coast to prop up the rest of the region.

The move will be coupled with tougher water restrictions from March 30 next year.

The Coast will initially be put on medium-level restrictions, but Mr Abbot said there was a good chance the area would join Brisbane – which will get most of our water – on high-level restrictions.

“If Brisbane continues to run out of water, I think high-level restrictions will certainly be part of the regime,” he said.

While Mr Abbot would not go so far as to say he felt bullied by the government, he said there had been “a lot of fait accompli” about the government’s actions.

“I’m of the belief I didn’t have much in the way of options – that’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

“All we’ve been able to do is play around the edges.”

Despite being reduced to a bit player in his own backyard, Mr Abbot has sought a written guarantee from the government that the Coast will not be left high and dry.

“The bottom line is I at least want a guarantee that there will be a pipeline headed north if we get into trouble,” he said.

Water commissioner Elizabeth Nosworthy said council would get that guarantee.

She said investments would be made to the water grid to ensure the Coast was looked after, although nothing had been done yet.

A Water Commission spokeswoman said the $9 billion grid’s northern pipeline interconnector was designed to be reversible.

She said to flow north, the pipeline would require pumps, which would be installed in sufficient time if dam levels on the Coast dropped sharply.

“If a major drought event occurred on the Sunshine Coast, it would be the grid’s responsibility and cost to respond to secure the Coast’s supply,” she said.

The decision to tap the Coast’s water supply follows an earlier outright denial from the government that it was planning to introduce water restrictions here.

In August 2006, then Deputy Premier Anna Bligh told the Coast’s mayors to get their facts right after they blasted the government’s water restrictions plan.

She said no plan existed and the mayors were misleading ratepayers.

The government previously dismissed the mayors’ concerns over a pipeline that would take water from the Coast to Brisbane and then later announced the pipeline plan.

Maroochydore MP Fiona Simpson claimed by the end of the year 80% of the Coast’s water supply would be taken to Brisbane and would not be coming back.

“It’s a one-way pipeline with no two-way pumping facilities,” she said.

“Coast people don’t like being lied to by the government.”