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web site. This is the official site
for Woorim Beach, its residents
and businesses and is designed
to keep you informed of the
happenings in and around
Woorim. Please visit the many
links below to access the
information that you may need.
Bribie Island Environmental Association (BIEPA)
President’s Report
THE BRIBIE BORES FIASCO
Following the announcement of the Bribie Bores Project in August 2006 I participated in the Aquifer Management Working Group as BIEPA’s representative and made detailed submissions with comments and recommendations to address major issues and concerns about the project.
Disappointingly, these comments and recommendations have not been addressed or accommodated in the project, leading me to feel that this group was formed for appearance rather than function. Similarly, the newly announced Community Reference Panel of four (4) suitably qualified members of the public (including myself) who were selected to guide the management and monitoring of the project has not had a promising start with Council refusing the panel’s requests in late 2007 to meet as soon as possible. Council has said it will only meet with us some time after pumping has commenced which is nonsense because this removes any opportunity for critical early input to the management and monitoring framework.
Therefore, given this continuing lack of proper consultation by Caboolture Shire Council, and after careful consideration, I feel I must report to you directly on some of the issues surrounding the project:
The Bribie Borefields Project is a Caboolture Shire Council Initiative.
This is a Caboolture Council initiative – not a State Government Initiative. Council has been attempting to implement the project for many years, but these moves have been consistently resisted by State Government including Qld EPA who posed many questions about the risks to the environment which were never properly addressed.
Caboolture Shire Council eventually succeeded in having the Bribie Bores Project included as part of the South East Queensland water grid at a time when the emergency water plans were being prepared in the midst of the drought in 2006. State Government bowed to pressure from Caboolture Shire Council at this time and included the Bribie Bores project as part of the South East Queensland emergency water plans making it compulsory by regulation that it be completed by December 2007.
Because of the high value areas and threatened and endangered species that the project could impact upon, the project had to be referred to the Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts – in particular the section that deals with threatened and endangered species under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The project cannot proceed until approval from the Commonwealth has been granted with or without conditions. The Commonwealth has delayed this approval largely because of the serious issues that BIEA has raised, however approval is imminent, making this the first of the three (3) SEQ water grid projects that were required to be referred to the Commonwealth to undergo this process – the other two being Traveston Dam and the Stradbroke Island Bores Project. The latter has recently been abandoned due to the serious associated environmental risks.
Project cost and amount of water delivered
The initial cost of the Bribie Bores Project that was to yield 10 million litres of water per day (10 ML/d) to the South East Queensland water grid was initially estimated by Caboolture Council on 5 Sept 2006 at $5 million but immediately this estimate rose to $10 million. Less than one year later the project cost, as uncovered by the Caboolture Shire Herald and featured on the front page of the 6 March 2007 edition had spiralled to $63 million under the headline “Massive cost blowout for Bribie island bore field - $63 million”. This cost was then reduced to $43.5 million by removing the decrepit southern water treatment plant from the project.
In the meantime the estimated yield from the bores had been decreasing from the initial 10 ML/day estimate to now a little over 6 ML/day. BIEPA believes that the final cost of the project has now risen to about $50 million (excluding the $20 million replacement cost of the urgently needed southern water treatment plant).
In summary, project costs have blown out from $5 to $10 to $50 million within two years (not including the postponed $20 million cost for replacing the southern treatment plant) while at the same time the volume of water to be provided has shrunk from 10 ML/d to about 6 ML/d. These two miscalculations together have resulted in a water cost blowout of about 700% which surely must establish some sort of record. Furthermore, it is likely that even the now reduced 6 ML/d estimated yield will be unachievable because of risky assumptions including the adoption of average historical rainfall in the estimates of yield from the aquifer with no allowance for the future reductions in rainfall as predicted under climate change.
From the outset, BIEPA encouraged Council to examine water recycling after the State led the way and implemented a major recycling project for Brisbane in 2006. Despite the very low levels of water recycling in Caboolture Shire and the potential for delivering at least 10 ML/d additional recycled water from the region at a comparatively very inexpensive estimated $10 million, Council did not even consider this option and single-mindedly proceeded with the Bribie Bores Project. Similarly Council did not listen to BIEPA’s opinion that desalination with ocean discharge and renewable energy supply was yet another preferable alternative project which avoided the high risk of irreversible damage to Bribie Island anticipated from the borefield project.
Unfortunately, based on written advice form the State Government in January 2008 that the cost of the Bribie Bores project will not be compensated in the current water infrastructure program, residents of Caboolture Shire will be left with a massive additional debt estimated at around $50 million for this project. All this for a project that was never needed and which has the potential to seriously and irreversibly damage the extremely high value environment of Bribie Island.
Environmental Issues
Several reports have highlighted the high conservation values of Bribie Island’s National Park and internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands and freshwater lakes.
Professor Arthington, a Brisbane based internationally recognised ecologist with specialist knowledge of the sand islands of Moreton Bay and Fraser Island, in a written statement to BIEPA, highlighted not only the known presence of threatened and endangered species within the area of effect of the borefield, but also pointed out the very likely existence of new as yet unidentified species in the wetland areas of Bribie Island. She also pointed out that, unlike on Stradbroke, Moreton and Fraser Island, comprehensive studies have never been done to establish just which important species and communities exist here on Bribie Island, and that it was essential that broadly based detailed assessments to carried out prior to commencement of the bores. In this way a “baseline” of species information with habitat locations could be established against which risks and any changes could be identified. Caboolture Council has refused to recognise this advice and as a result we’ll never know what impact the project has on threatened and endangered species.
Caboolture Council has mislead the Commonwealth and the community
Several obvious omissions, errors and incorrect statements have been made by Council and its consultants in responses to questions about the project from the Commonwealth as part of the required reporting. Some examples are:
Council, via their consultants, has stated that Bribie Island is totally reliant on the borefield for its water, when in fact much of Bribie Island’s water is currently supplied via a pipeline over the bridge from the water grid.
Council through its various reports to Canberra has said that if saltwater intrusion under Bribie Island enters the Ramsar lakes, as is a possibility, then this is of no consequence as the lakes are already quite brackish. However BIEPA did its own inspection and tests and established that some of the lakes and coastal wetlands were in pristine condition with little to no salt content (totally “fresh” water in some cases) and that these water sources were an obvious critical source of fresh water to animals, birds, frogs and plants. Saltwater intrusion into the fragile wetlands of Bribie Island, as has happened so often in other coastal groundwater projects in Queensland, would be disastrous and would cause irreversible damage to these precious ecosystems.
Disappointingly, these comments and recommendations have not been addressed or accommodated in the project, leading me to feel that this group was formed for appearance rather than function. Similarly, the newly announced Community Reference Panel of four (4) suitably qualified members of the public (including myself) who were selected to guide the management and monitoring of the project has not had a promising start with Council refusing the panel’s requests in late 2007 to meet as soon as possible. Council has said it will only meet with us some time after pumping has commenced which is nonsense because this removes any opportunity for critical early input to the management and monitoring framework.
Therefore, given this continuing lack of proper consultation by Caboolture Shire Council, and after careful consideration, I feel I must report to you directly on some of the issues surrounding the project:
The Bribie Borefields Project is a Caboolture Shire Council Initiative.
This is a Caboolture Council initiative – not a State Government Initiative. Council has been attempting to implement the project for many years, but these moves have been consistently resisted by State Government including Qld EPA who posed many questions about the risks to the environment which were never properly addressed.
Caboolture Shire Council eventually succeeded in having the Bribie Bores Project included as part of the South East Queensland water grid at a time when the emergency water plans were being prepared in the midst of the drought in 2006. State Government bowed to pressure from Caboolture Shire Council at this time and included the Bribie Bores project as part of the South East Queensland emergency water plans making it compulsory by regulation that it be completed by December 2007.
Because of the high value areas and threatened and endangered species that the project could impact upon, the project had to be referred to the Commonwealth Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts – in particular the section that deals with threatened and endangered species under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
The project cannot proceed until approval from the Commonwealth has been granted with or without conditions. The Commonwealth has delayed this approval largely because of the serious issues that BIEA has raised, however approval is imminent, making this the first of the three (3) SEQ water grid projects that were required to be referred to the Commonwealth to undergo this process – the other two being Traveston Dam and the Stradbroke Island Bores Project. The latter has recently been abandoned due to the serious associated environmental risks.
Project cost and amount of water delivered
The initial cost of the Bribie Bores Project that was to yield 10 million litres of water per day (10 ML/d) to the South East Queensland water grid was initially estimated by Caboolture Council on 5 Sept 2006 at $5 million but immediately this estimate rose to $10 million. Less than one year later the project cost, as uncovered by the Caboolture Shire Herald and featured on the front page of the 6 March 2007 edition had spiralled to $63 million under the headline “Massive cost blowout for Bribie island bore field -
In the meantime the estimated yield from the bores had been decreasing from the initial 10 ML/day estimate to now a little over 6 ML/day. BIEPA believes that the final cost of the project has now risen to about $50 million (excluding the $20 million replacement cost of the urgently needed southern water treatment plant).
In summary, project costs have blown out from $5 to $10 to $50 million within two years (not including the postponed $20 million cost for replacing the southern treatment plant) while at the same time the volume of water to be provided has shrunk from 10 ML/d to about 6 ML/d. These two miscalculations together have resulted in a water cost blowout of about 700% which surely must establish some sort of record. Furthermore, it is likely that even the now reduced 6 ML/d estimated yield will be unachievable because of risky assumptions including the adoption of average historical rainfall in the estimates of yield from the aquifer with no allowance for the future reductions in rainfall as predicted under climate change.
From the outset, BIEPA encouraged Council to examine water recycling after the State led the way and implemented a major recycling project for Brisbane in 2006. Despite the very low levels of water recycling in Caboolture Shire and the potential for delivering at least 10 ML/d additional recycled water from the region at a comparatively very inexpensive estimated $10 million, Council did not even consider this option and single-
Unfortunately, based on written advice form the State Government in January 2008 that the cost of the Bribie Bores project will not be compensated in the current water infrastructure program, residents of Caboolture Shire will be left with a massive additional debt estimated at around $50 million for this project. All this for a project that was never needed and which has the potential to seriously and irreversibly damage the extremely high value environment of Bribie Island.
Environmental Issues
Several reports have highlighted the high conservation values of Bribie Island’s National Park and internationally recognised Ramsar wetlands and freshwater lakes.
Professor Arthington, a Brisbane based internationally recognised ecologist with specialist knowledge of the sand islands of Moreton Bay and Fraser Island, in a written statement to BIEPA, highlighted not only the known presence of threatened and endangered species within the area of effect of the borefield, but also pointed out the very likely existence of new as yet unidentified species in the wetland areas of Bribie Island. She also pointed out that, unlike on Stradbroke, Moreton and Fraser Island, comprehensive studies have never been done to establish just which important species and communities exist here on Bribie Island, and that it was essential that broadly based detailed assessments to carried out prior to commencement of the bores. In this way a “baseline” of species information with habitat locations could be established against which risks and any changes could be identified. Caboolture Council has refused to recognise this advice and as a result we’ll never know what impact the project has on threatened and endangered species.
Caboolture Council has mislead the Commonwealth and the community
Several obvious omissions, errors and incorrect statements have been made by Council and its consultants in responses to questions about the project from the Commonwealth as part of the required reporting. Some examples are:
Council, via their consultants, has stated that Bribie Island is totally reliant on the borefield for its water, when in fact much of Bribie Island’s water is currently supplied via a pipeline over the bridge from the water grid.
Council through its various reports to Canberra has said that if saltwater intrusion under Bribie Island enters the Ramsar lakes, as is a possibility, then this is of no consequence as the lakes are already quite brackish. However BIEPA did its own inspection and tests and established that some of the lakes and coastal wetlands were in pristine condition with little to no salt content (totally “fresh” water in some cases) and that these water sources were an obvious critical source of fresh water to animals, birds, frogs and plants. Saltwater intrusion into the fragile wetlands of Bribie Island, as has happened so often in other coastal groundwater projects in Queensland, would be disastrous and would cause irreversible damage to these precious ecosystems.
Council’s consultants have, wherever possible and on behalf of Council, downplayed the environmental values of Bribie Island, describing the area affected by the project as consisting of pine plantations, being impacted by wild fires and inhabited by cane toads. Photographs or descriptions of the beautiful Ramsar wetlands including the large freshwater lakes were notably absent. It is difficult to understand how these could be overlooked as they are one to two kilometres long in some cases.
BIEPA has played an important role in alerting the Commonwealth to the serious risks to the environment that we felt were being “glossed over” in Caboolture Council’s reporting.
Existing issues re groundwater extraction on Bribie Island
The main risks from further groundwater extraction on Bribie Island include lowering the water table of the wetlands and freshwater lakes that support a unique and diverse range of flora and fauna including threatened and endangered species and communities. There is also the risk of salt water intrusion into these high value areas. These problems are already known to exist on Bribie Island and have been raised in a report prepared for the State Government in August 2006 by Dr Sandra Brizga in a study of the impacts of past water extraction from the southern trenches and bores. Saltwater intrusion has also occurred in a number of the estimated 2500 privately owned domestic bores.
The potential for these problems has also been raised in Post Graduate Masters theses by qualified geologists carried out under Associate Professor Mal Cox at the Queensland University of Technology, who has accumulated a vast knowledge of the Bribie Aquifer.
As stated earlier, following comprehensive consultation with the Stradbroke Island community and independent specialists, the Stradbroke Island Borefield project was recently abandoned by the State Government because of the unacceptably high level of risk to the environment. However, the Bribie Bores project, which poses a greater risk to the environment due in part its flatter landscape, and which has not been the subject of proper consultation, nor even an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), is expected to commence pumping any day now.
Ian Bell
MSc. (Env), Grad Dip Env Eng
MEIANZ MAWA