THE TWEED
Unity
www.tweedecho.com.au
F E S T I V A L
Volume 4 #8 Thursday, October 20, 2011
October 22 2011
Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au 21,000 copies every week CAB AUDIT
Murwillumbah p.14–15
Local & independent
Mayor’s casting vote sinks Byrrill Creek dam plan Steve Spencer
The future of Tweed’s water supply is in limbo after the council axed the Byrrill Creek dam project but voted against raising the wall of the Clarrie Hall Dam in a bizarre twist to the year-long saga. Tweed Shire councillors were split down the middle on the Byrrill Creek issue after Cr Joan van Lieshout decided to abstain from voting, saying she had a ‘perceived conflict of interest’. Mayor Barry Longland then used his casting vote to overturn the council’s previous support for the Byrrill Creek dam project.
No future water policy But just minutes later Cr van Lieshout re-entered the council chamber and voted against raising the current dam wall, effectively leaving the council without a future water policy. This was despite her avowed stance that she wanted to ensure ‘water security’. During the feisty meeting several councillors said the dam issue would now have to be decided at the next local government election, due in 11 months’ time, while a vocal public gallery filled with anti-Byrrill Creek dam campaign-
ers called out in protest. Greens Cr Katie Milne told the three councillors who voted to flood the Byrrill Creek valley, Crs Kevin Skinner, Warren Polglase and Phil Youngblutt, that they only represented 21 per cent of the Tweed electorate and ‘if you want to impose your will it is poor governance. I ask those councillors not to be obstructionist’. Cr Longland told his colleagues the Byrrill Creek project should never have been supported by council and ‘I hope councillors think long and hard about keeping us on this merrygo-round’. ‘This is about water security for the shire and the clear winner is raising the Clarrie Hall Dam wall,’ he said. ‘There are so many things that mitigate against the Byrrill Creek option and there are so many things going for raising the current dam wall. Byrrill Creek is not needed now.’ Byrrill Creek dam supporter Cr Polglase told the meeting that a ‘large percentage of the shire’s population only talk through the ballot box’ and warned it would become the election issue next year. ‘Tweed Council always had a vision for our water supply. Byrrill Creek has been on the agenda for 20 years and that’s why council bought $14 million of land there. ‘Byrrill Creek was the best option
Kids ‘want to save our koalas’ A colouring-in competition sponsored by The Echo during the month of the koala drew around 800 entries. The number surprised organisers, but more unexpected was the awareness shown by schoolchildren of the marsupial’s plight in the Tweed. Team Koala founder Jenny Hayes said she was absolutely thrilled at the number of entries but also the astounding creativity shown by par-
ticipants as well as their general level of awareness about koalas. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it, they were all quite creative, some even used poetry to express their feeling about the koala which was overwhelmingly one of sadness about their future; they want to save them,’ Ms Hayes, a primary-school teacher, told The Echo. continued on page 4
Save Byrrill Creek campaigner Jo Gardner (centre), who would be affected by a new dam there, and Doon Doon farmer Ron Duckworth, whose property near the existing Clarrie Hall Dam would be partly inundated if the dam walls are raised, stand united in a rare moment of cheery solidarity outside council chambers on Tuesday after the votes which sidelined both dam options. Save Byrrill Creek campaigners in the background also welcomed the no dams decision. Photo Albert Elzinga
but council staff chose the easier option. We should look at the best option for the community.’ But Cr Dot Holdom said the cost of building a new dam would force up house prices in the shire. ‘People coming to the shire will be forced to pay more; it makes a mockery of affordable housing,’ she said. ‘If Byrrill Creek is to get up today it will eventually fail. The state government will say to us, “why did you persist with this?”’ Cr Holdom also questioned Cr Youngblutt’s support for Byrrill Creek after being elected as a supporter of raising the existing dam wall. Cr Youngblutt replied that he was ‘glad Cr Holdom was keeping a dossier on me. I had forgotten all about that’. He said residents of Byrrill Creek knew when they moved there the
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valley was earmarked for water storage, and when the $10 million cost of a water pipeline to the Gold Coast, currently being examined by Tweed Council staff, was put into the mix the cost of the two projects became ‘very much closer’.
‘Let the people decide’ Cr van Lieshout called for the Tweed’s water needs to be decided at the next election, saying, ‘let’s let the people decide’. ‘I have a large amount of votes that have been excluded [because of her abstention] from deciding the future of the water supply. Water is life; we must harvest it,’ she said Cr van Lieshout and her husband Peter own land, part of which would be flooded if the Byrrill Creek dam project goes ahead, giving them water frontage.
During last year’s debate on the dam options, Cr van Lieshout also abstained, causing a tied vote and leading to then mayor Kevin Skinner using his casting vote to support the building a new dam at Byrrill Creek. But during this week’s debate Cr Skinner said that: ‘I’ve been in the same situation [as mayor Longland] and used my casting vote. The decision should not be made by one person; the decision I believe should be made at a council election.’ Last year, a lengthy community consultation process on water supply options recommended doubling the capacity of the existing Clarrie Hall Dam by raising the dam wall, but that was overturned by former mayor Skinner, and Crs Polglase and Youngblutt who pushed through the new dam option instead. continued on page 2