People power needed to stop Traveston Crossing dam
9th October, 2009
Federal Member for Wide Bay, Warren Truss, has called on local people to make one last effort to lobby Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, to reject the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal.Mr Garrett will decide the future of the Mary Valley in as little as four weeks.
“The livelihoods of the communities of the Mary Valley as well as the survival of a range of endangered species are in his hands,” Mr Truss said.
“Any project which requires more than 1,200 conditions and requirements just to reduce the environmental damage should never be approved.
“Mary Valley residents have sent a very strong message to Mr Garrett over the past two years. I have delivered more than 9,450 dam protest letters to Parliament House in Canberra from local residents. 16,000 submissions were made in response to the Queensland Government’s Environmental Impact Statement. A 5,393 signature-petition was tabled in the House of Representatives last month.
“All of this will be to no avail if we cannot persuade Mr Garrett to do the right thing now.
“While his personal credibility is at stake, what is more important is the protection of the precious Mary Valley environment and the lifestyle of its people.
“Now is the critical time for people to write, email or telephone Mr Garrett, to express their opposition to the dam and ask for a formal opportunity to comment the dam’s conditions.”
Mr Truss said that he had personally written again to Mr Garrett making another appeal for him to reject this project.
“I will also be raising this matter in Federal Parliament when it resumes later this month.
“I am deeply concerned about the approval process for the Traveston Crossing Dam.
“The dam is a proposal elevated by the State Labor Government above other options which had been recommended by their advisers. The State Government have been the political advocates for the project. The State Government undertook the Environmental Impact Assessment and now a State Government official has reviewed the Assessment and recommended conditions which should apply to the project. If it goes ahead the State Government will build the dam.
“It will be State Government bureaucrats who then decide whether the conditions have been fulfilled. It will be the State Government which imposes any penalties on itself when any conditions are not honoured.
“How can anyone believe that this has been a fair and honest process?
Mr Garrett is the only “outside” voice and I appeal to him to make the right environmental decision and not a political decision.”
