The proposed Green Hills dam, outlined as part of the 2009 Gulf Savannah Development Gilbert River Agricultural Precinct scoping brief, should be the priority for the state government’s water focus now that IFED is not in the picture, according to Georgetown crop farmer Brendan Fry.
Brendan and his father Ken have been “mucking round” with crops since 2007 and say a dam built at Green Hills station is probably the only way irrigation will work in the area.
“We have sandy, alluvial dirt, with no clay to build ring tanks with,” Brendan said. “It was all identified in CSIRO research and there was a full economic case study.
“Green Hills is shovel-ready and the science is done, but IFED took a lot of interest away from it.
“I’d like to see a discussion started round it again.”
Mr Fry said he wasn’t surprised the IFED project didn’t go ahead, because of the soil types on its proposed location.
“The question is now, is that water going to be released, and if it is, what sort will it be.”
He said overland flow allocations wouldn’t be much good for existing and prospective Georgetown users, due to their soil, but would be more beneficial to Van Rook and others downstream, with the soil to hold water.
Mr Fry said that if water was stored in the right way, the area around Georgetown was “another Burdekin” thanks to the rich alluvial soils.
“You’d possibly see the same sort of investment here, but only if you had 12 months of water stored.
“That’s where Green Hills stacks up.”
In the last wet season, Brendan and his father Ken grew 350ha of corn and sorghum at Forest Home, and are hoping for a minimum of 600ha this year.
“We had been growing hay but are looking at grains more now,” he said.