Article – Urannah Dam project gathering some momentum

28 April 2014
Jon Ortlieb
Daily Mercury
THE long-anticipated Urannah Dam project may be gathering some momentum after a series of Northern Australian Development Committee sittings.
The proposed dam, about 60 kilometres south-west of Proserpine, was first mooted more than 40 years ago and has been raised at various community and government levels many times since.
The dam proposal was presented to the NADC last month in Mackay by Member for Whitsunday Jason Costigan.
Other groups put up the same project at other sittings.
The project has now attracted the attention of Federal Member for Dawson George Christensen.
“I think the Northern Australian Development Committee went away with the view that there was one project that definitely needed to go forward and that was the Urannah Dam,” he said.
“I can’t pre-empt the committee, but this is fairly exciting. I think everyone was pretty impressed.”
The proposed dam is predicted to have a capacity close to 80% of the giant neighbouring Burdekin Dam and would service about 30,000 acres of agricultural land as well as many nearby mine requirements.
Mr Christensen said the knock-on benefits for Mackay in the $200 million-plus project would be construction, ongoing maintenance work and possible port opportunities.
Mr Costigan said the project fitted in “beautifully with our government’s objective to double agricultural food production by 2040”.
“It’d be almost as big as the Burdekin Falls Dam as we know it today and would open up a whole new world for expansion in the agricultural and resources sectors in our hinterland,” he said.
“After being talked about for the past 50 years, it’s time something actually happened especially if we’re fair dinkum about opening up northern Australia.”
Courtesy of the Daily Mercury