Thread by @CartwheelPrint

Chinese company approved to run water mining operation in drought-stricken Queensland theguardian.com/environment/20… Water mining ffs Take a deep breath, let’s unpack this for as many eyeballs as possible to see. This BS must stop. #qldpol #auspol #waterislife

Last week the Southern Downs regional council approved an application for the company, Joyful View Garden Real Estate Development Resort Pty Ltd, to operate a water extraction and distribution facility at Cherrabah, a large property at Elbow Valley near QLD-NSW border. #nswpol

👉The following day the council implemented extreme water restrictions for residents at the nearby towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe, limiting residents to 80L a day.

Stanthorpe is expected to run out of drinking water within weeks. 👈

The company had attempted to build a large-scale luxury resort at the remote property but pulled the proposal in 2016 after planning and environmental difficulties, including concern for a local population of spotted-tailed quolls.

The water extraction licence for the property was first issued by the QLD government in 2008 and extended in 2016 to allow them to pump 96m litres from the aquifer until 2111 – another 92 years. The company plans to send the water to a bottling plant on the Gold Coast.

Councillors who voted in favour of the development application at a 18 December meeting said they had no power to regulate groundwater extraction, which was a state responsibility. More here: freetimes.com.au/news/2019-12-1…

The council was aware of many individuals extracting underground or bore water in the region and selling it privately to users from outside the region, and there was nothing the council could do about the practice.
The ‘everyone else is doing it’ mentality..

“This is happening all over the region and here we are singling out one landowner,” Cr McNally said.

She commended Cherrabah’s owners for “doing the right thing” and applying for council approval for their proposed operation.
They even got an ‘atta boy’.

Cr Neil Meiklejohn said the application before council was “not about water” and it was only concerned with the council’s planning rules around “truck movements” and the placement of water extraction “infrastructure”.
Unbelievable.

The council conducted no consultation on the new application, instead relying on submissions made by concerned residents in 2018.
Before the drought, how convenient..

“I am a close neighbour and I depend on creeks, springs and shallow wells … I have never been surveyed on any long-term effects,” Eagle View property owner Ben Usher said.
We can’t keep living like this, short term thinking will kill us.

“I know from information passed down through generations of my family, and from years of my own experience that … springs on the property could be relied on to provide water for the grazing of cattle throughout its history.

“This situation has changed. Over time supply has become sporadic with increasing water shortage. I can no longer rely on [the property’s] well and need to cart water to my property.”

The company also acknowledged that test pumping was “extremely challenging to analyse” and that the authors did not attempt to model the long-term drawdown of the water resource because doing so would not be reliable.
How the hell could you approve this?! End.