By Andrew Messenger
The Queensland government is facing criticism over the decision to spend billions of dollars replacing an unsafe 20-year-old dam before completing a business case for the scheme.
The 3,000-megalitre Paradise Dam was built near Bundaberg in 2005 to serve the surrounding agricultural industry, but it was found to be at risk of collapse in 2019 due to engineering mistakes, including the use of a new concrete construction method.
The state and federal governments had jointly committed $1.2bn to return the dam to its original size after they were forced to lower the dam wall to improve safety. The dam now holds just 42% of its original design capacity.
The state’s water minister, Glenn Butcher, confirmed on Thursday that experts had determined the dam could not be repaired or reinforced. He promised to replace Paradise with an entirely new dam.
Building a new dam is expected to cost significantly more than repairing the existing structure, and there is no timeline or costings for the new project but development of a business case has commenced. It will also require new environmental approvals.
The University of Sydney head of school of civil engineering, Stuart Khan, said committing to the project before knowing cost, timeline, or technical details was repeating the mistakes of the past.
He said there was a familiar roadmap for similar situations, where initial cost estimates are “some sort of guess”, and blowouts escalate, until eventually it is discovered the project is not economically viable and is cancelled. Or even worse – the project is completed, and, like Paradise Dam, built incorrectly and fails.
“We should not be announcing projects – whether that be a new-build, or major repair or whatever – before doing an assessment of what’s involved,” Khan said.
The Bundaberg Fruit and Vegetable Growers CEO, Bree Watson, said they had been told the plan was to build a new dam wall about 70 metres downstream of the current one, which would take “seven to 10 years” to finish.
“This is a devastating blow for farmers,” Watson said. “We don’t have assurances around when water allocations will be available for sale again.
“So it’s a really, really challenging time for an industry which is already on its knees.”
A spokesperson for the state government-owned water provider Sunwater said the new dam would be exactly the same height and capacity as the old one.
Butcher described the decision to replace the dam as a “win for the Bundaberg region” and “a major benefit for agricultural producers”.
Butcher said the $1.2bn committed by the federal and state governments was still available for the project, but conceded the replacement would cost more than the initial budget.
“I don’t think it’s embarrassing at all,” he said.
The opposition MP Deb Frecklington labelled Paradise Dam as “one of the biggest infrastructure fails in Queensland” and a “disgrace”.
Sunwater’s chief executive, Glenn Stockton, said they only discovered that the dam was not up to contemporary standards and would lose strength over time “late last year”.
Stockton said the 60,000 people living downstream of the dam were perfectly safe.
“We have confidence that the dam is safe today. But the issue for us is investing in that dam and trying to rebuild that dam up is not a viable alternative going forward,” he said.
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/11/queensland-paradise-dam-damage-wall-replaced-why-concrete-issues
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