The interest in irrigated agriculture in the state’s north west brought on by the tender of nearly 700,000 megalitres of unallocated water in the Flinders and Gilbert River systems has revived a call for consideration for a large water project at Richmond.
Shire mayor John Wharton, who is also the interim chairman of the Developing Northern Australia Cooperative Research Centre, believes the O’Connell Creek project is deserving of strong investor interest and therefore state coordinated project status.
It has been bandied around since 1999 and is backed up by engineering studies and the Mount Isa-Townsville Economic Zone, with a listing as its number one project, but Cr Wharton says it’s an idea whose time has come.
“It would store 350,000 megalitres and that would irrigate 30,000 acres,” he said. “It’s pretty straight-forward; there’s no dam in the river, just a diversion weir.”
In the mid-2000s Richmond Shire Council’s efforts to obtain support for the project met stiff resistance from the Wilderness Society, who said it would be environmentally unsound and restrict downstream water use.
Cr Wharton said that with the release of the CSIRO Northern Australia Sustainable Yields Project report, those criticisms were not warranted.
“It’s proved that taking that water is OK, and our soil is good – you can’t argue with science,” he said. “We don’t need any more research. This is already proven.”
He did acknowledge that a new environmental impact statement would need to be done.
Cr Wharton isn’t expecting potential investors to participate in the current release of unallocated water from the Flinders River, which is structured in tiers so that only certain amounts can be taken from each reach.
“It won’t allow for what we want to do – this needs to be a special project,” he said.
As well as the amount of water it would require, 100,000ML annually, three per cent of the total river flow or 18 per cent of what flows past Richmond on average, there would be a number of different landholders to negotiate with.
Cr Wharton expects a company would buy the land it needed and said the proximity to Richmond’s community facilities, as well as a rail line and Flinders Highway, made the whole package attractive.
“If you planted 15,000ha to rice, you would make $90m a year. It’s very similar to Cubbie – they bought and paid for that in their first year,” he said.
The proposal is currently the subject of a business plan by Bentleys Business Advisors, and is being scrutinised by potential investors, according to Cr Wharton.
Some of his passion for the project lies in his belief that a “big” operation is needed to build the infrastructure – a processing plant or cotton gin – that smaller operators won’t have the individual capacity to construct.
He cited his own experiment with grain sorghum planted directly into 500 acres of Mitchell grass downs one February when there was a one metre soil moisture profile.
He estimated a yield of one tonne an acre, valued at $500,000 but had to leave it in the paddock when he wasn’t able to source a harvester for seven weeks.
“That’s why we need the big guys, and they need 100,000ML to build a processing plant,” he said.
“Something like this would attract feedlots too. One investor wants to put in a 20,000 head facility near Maxwelton.”
Natural Resources Minister Anthony Lynham was briefed on the project when he met Cr Wharton in Townsville during the Northern Queensland Economic Summit in October.
He said the government shared the keen interest in sustainable development of the north west for the jobs and economic growth this could generate.
“Coordinated project status is a matter for the independent Coordinator-General and Mayor Wharton has been encouraged to work with the office to progress this,” he said.
Coordinated projects can be declared where a project has complex approval requirements, involving local, state and federal governments; significant environmental effects; strategic significance to an area; or has significant infrastructure requirements.
