MAY 26, 2016: FUNDING is set to flow to create jobs, provide water security and open up vast tracts of agricultural land with Federal Member for Dawson George Christensen welcoming announcements this morning that pre-construction planning work will begin for the Urannah Dam, the raising of the Burdekin Dam Wall, the Burdekin Haughton Channel upgrade, Hell’s Gate Dam and to upgrade water infrastructure for Clermont.Today’s announcement makes all the hard work fighting for local jobs worthwhile.

• We have announced $3 million for pre-construction planning work for the Urannah Dam which has the potential to open up between 12,000 and 30,000 hectares of agricultural land, as well as provide water for new mines in the Galilee Basin.
• There’s also $400,000 for pre-construction planning work for the raising of the Burdekin Dam Wall which would secure Townsville’s urban water supply and provide additional water for mines in the Bowen and Galilee Basins.
• There’s $1,915,000 for pre-construction planning work for the Burdekin Haughton Channel Capacity Upgrade which would improve efficiencies and provide access to more water for new and existing customers in the Burdekin.
• There’s also $2.2 million for pre-construction planning work for a new dam at Hell’s Gate on the Upper Burdekin River, which could supply water to Townsville and open up agricultural land in the Upper Burdekin.
• And there’s $225,000 to rectify problems for Clermont’s water supply. This funding is for a works program to construct and upgrade major water infrastructure for Clermont, for augmentation and remediation work at the Theresa Creek Dam, and for groundwater investigations.

This is all about creating jobs now and well into the future, it’s about expanding our agricultural potential and it’s about providing water security and it’s great news for people right across Central and North Queensland.Rather than just being about planning, the Liberal National Government has the funding and loan facilities in place to ensure water infrastructure projects become a reality.This commitment is kick-starting these projects.We do the pre-construction planning work and if the business case stacks up, the environmental hurdles are overcome, the economics is right and the water cost is right, they will go ahead.We not only have a fund which can contribute to some of the construction costs (the National Water Infrastructure Fund) which provides direct government money into a project , we also have two loan facilities (the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund) which can be used to provide cheap finance for these projects.We don’t just have a study and nothing more.The planning has to be done, and if all the boxes are ticked there’s a major bucket of money to get things underway.