As Australia recognises National Water Week, Townsville Enterprise calls for the Federal Government to support shovel-ready water projects in the upcoming Mid-Year Federal Budget Review and enable economic growth and certainty for the CopperString project.
With Australia’s largest transformational energy project CopperString soon to commence, access to water is becoming a looming question over the project.
Townsville Enterprise CEO, Claudia Brumme-Smith says that water security is fundamental to driving economic development.
“As early as next year we anticipate breaking ground to start construction on CopperString, the nation building project that will connect the North West Corridor and open up more than 33GW of renewable energy – but this cannot be achieved without water for construction.”
“Without water security this project could see serious delays and Australia’s opportunity to access the countries best wind and solar resources could be diminished or lost.”
“Without water we can’t see wind farms erected, building concrete pads for transmission towers becomes difficult and sustaining the population required to realise these projects is nearly impossible.” Ms Brumme-Smith said.
A key project ready to commence pending additional funding, is the Hughenden Offstream Storage project, a 7,000ML storage facility, including pumping infrastructure and approximately 7km of pipeline.
Flinders Shire Mayor Jane McNamara said the Hughenden Offstream Storage is the first step towards water security for Northern Australia.
“With all approvals in place and State Government funding committed, we eagerly await the commitment of matching Federal Government funding in the Mid-Year Budget.” says Flinders Mayor Jane McNamara.
“This is the most advanced water project in North Queensland, it has water allocation, land tenure sits with the local council, a business case that demonstrates the projects benefits and it has a commitment of funding from the State Government.
“What we now need is the Federal Government to demonstrate its positive support for the project with a matched funding commitment of $26.5M” Mayor McNamara said.
“We acknowledge and thank the Queensland Government for its support towards CopperString and the Hughenden Offstream Storage project and we hope to see the Federal Government matching this support.”
“Whilst the Hughenden Offstream Storage is small in comparison to the scale required for future development and renewable projects, it is absolutely required and a great start to securing the next 5-10 years of development in the region.
Townsville Enterprise will be taking this project along with other regional priorities to help the region realise the full potential of CopperString, to the State and Federal Government in the coming weeks through its Unlock the North advocacy platform.
Background:
The Hughenden Offstream Water Storage project has been a priority of Flinders Shire Council as an enabling project to support the ongoing development of the 15 Mile Irrigation Development Project, and the proposed Hughenden meatworks and feedlot.
Five key benefits have been identified from the project delivery by addressing the above problems. These are:
- Regional economic growth – Preliminary stages of work found that at a 7% real discount rate, the project returns a Net Present Value (NPV) of $5.0 million and a Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of 1.09. At a discount rate of 4%, the results improve to $19.5 million and 1.33, respectively
- Increased regional employment opportunities
- Optimised utilisation of existing natural resource base (land and water resources)
- Improved financial sustainability and rate base.
- Community resilience and sustainability
