No Tillegra Dam Group

Following the independent arbiter, Sir Lawrence Street’s report recommending the release of ‘document No.9′ as it was in the public interest, Hunter Water Corp. has withdrawn its claim of privilege, making the memo publicly available. The document exposes the complete lack of planning and analysis before the 13 November 2006 announcement of Tillegra Dam. One of 4 water infrastructure ideas worthy of consideration it was put to the Iemma government with a cost that had “not been robustly quantified” but was “likely to be in the order of $250 million”. Further, the original DA submitted by HWC to the Department of Planning in November 2007 had 200 construction jobs and 5 permanent jobs. Now it said to cost $477M and create 1850 jobs??? The final design might be approved but hasn’t yet been costed by dam building contractors and nearly all large scale civil engineering projects, especially dams blowout in construction costs. Even Water Minister Costa is eager to water down costs.

The real cost of this dam may well be the political future of those forging ahead with an attitude of ‘a dam at any cost’!

Two recent Newcastle Herald articles as well as repeated attempts by John Kaye of the Upper House indicate that the NSW Labor Government is withholding key documents that can shed light on the pre-announcement planning/discussions around the Tillegra Dam proposal.  According to an old African proverb, only a fool tests the water with both feet - and this is just what Iemma did. Now the coverup and denial is reminiscent of another power drunk and desperate politician. Following the path of least resistence is what makes both polticians and rivers crooked. This corrupt government will ignore the advice of the respected Sir Laurence Street at their own peril - the electorate will send them a watershed result.

A SECRET Tillegra Dam memo that Hunter Water has tried to keep under wraps should be made public, a retired Supreme Court judge has found. continue reading » »

Letter writing (or sending emails) is an effective way of getting our message to the politicians making decisions on our behalf. Please write as many and as often as the urge takes you - it does have an impact on their impression of how important an issue is. Below is a list of MPs or links to their name, addresses and links to sample letters to help you write a letter of protest.

Local MPs
Our local State member, George Souris. You can download a ready-to-go letter.
A list of Hunter region MPs and a sample letter can be found here.

State Ministers
Email or write letters to Premier Rees (sample letter) and Ministers Costa, Tripodi, Keneally, Tebbutt, McKay

Federal Ministers
Write to Mr. Peter Garrett, Federal Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts about the Tillegra Dam proposal. Sample letter1, sample letter2 . Background briefing.

Lobby the Labor polies

This is a plea to all concerned citizens, community groups, catchment management authorities and anyone interested in ecologically sustainable development.  The Cessnock State Electorate Council invited Water Minister Phillip Costa to speak on the subject of the proposed Tillegra Dam at an ALP fund raising event on 8 May, 2009. I hope he came well briefed, because he seems to not understand all the implications. The proposed Tillegra Dam is an extremely contentious issue within the Hunter community and beyond. Public opinion against this proposal has grown from a small community based group to a broad spectrum of angry ratepayers, community, environmental, and political groups (see this article on Newcastle Herald polls). Presently, an army of volunteers are working across marginal Labor seats, talking to voters and letterboxing, to inform the ratepayers of the Hunter that this infrastructure proposal is yet another bad decision by the Labor Government. Four Queensland Labor seats were lost over the Traveston Dam in QLD.

The proposed Tillegra Dam is a project, costing at last estimate $477 million and rising, that is not needed, is not necessary and stands to destroy the healthiest river system in the Hunter.

A key strategy of the Australian Water Industry Roadmap* is to review current infrastructure configurations with a view to facilitating emergence of more efficient systems. So what has the NSW Labor state government and its instrumentality Hunter Water Corp. come up with? Build a large surface area (shallow) dam in a catchment that is already dammed (Chichester Dam) and next to another dammed river (Paterson River - Lostock Dam), and then send the water down an open channel that will become a ditch - what is now the beautiful Williams River - how efficient is this! Blue-green algal blooms and evaporation will mean before too long another solution will be needed. Let’s get it right now. continue reading » »

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal delivered its draft determination for water and sewerage pricing in the Hunter on the eve of ANZAC Day. (NH 24.4.09). The tribunal determined how to extract a selective tax from Hunter households for expensive, destructive and unnecessary infrastructure. Namely the proposed $400+ million Tillegra Dam.

If IPART could act independently it could assess whether the Tillegra Dam decision is justified. All available evidence shows that it is not.
The tribunal acknowledged Hunter Water’s alternative drought security strategy would cost only $155 million.

Storages are currently at capacity. Department of Environment and Climate Change forecasts (as at October 2008) show a slight increase in annual runoff in the Hunter to 2050. Hunter Water’s own data shows that 160,000 extra population will not have any significant impact on storage levels and the Corporation has yet to develop long-term water saving rules to reduce demand.

IPART has been prevented by a directive from the NSW Water Minister from assessing the justification for the proposed dam. There is no hurry to build the dam or pay for it during this current 4 year pricing period. It is time for an independent assessment.

With the success of the demonstration at the Hunter Cabinet meeting on 8 April 2009 by the Save the Williams River Coalition, and the next Cabinet meeting in the Hunter scheduled for May 28, we must keep up the campaigning, general discussion and letter writing to newspapers and politicians.

Brian is having success using the Hunter storage simulation graph to quickly convince people that there is no need for the dam and that therefore the water stored at Tillegra would ultimately be sold for other purposes - power generation, water intensive industry and use by other water authorities such as Central Coast or Sydney. This is motivating locals to make a stand. We should all try to sign up at least 10 new members and ask them to do 3 things:

1. Write letters to a range of people we identify as the most important including all local councillors and members of parliament

2. Turn up to the rally on Thursday 28 May for the next Community Cabinet meeting in Newcastle or Warners Bay

3. Sign up 10 of their friends to do the same three things.

Don’t forget Wednesdays 4:30pm at the office for tea, chat  and campaign management.

With the NSW state Labor government reeling from one poor and desperate decision to another and looking more and more like imploding NOW is the time to lobby our local MPs, many of whom are in marginal seats. Please send your local MP a clear message by writing a letter - preferably your own or you can copy and paste the sample below, just make sure to address it to the correct MP - or send an email. The addresses and contact details for our local MPs are listed below. Below these is a sample letter that you could use. continue reading » »

Why Tillegra Dam is really Lake Orkopoulos

In the light of Mr Milton Orkopoulos, former member for Swansea, seeking an appeal for his prison sentence as a convicted sex felon, it is timely to revisit the announcement of the proposed Tillegra Dam.

On October 10, 2005, Ms Gillian Sneddon, Mr Orkopoulos’s electorate officer, took a call from a sexual abuse victim. This event, Ms Sneddon has stated repeatedly in the press, was the beginning of a smear campaign by the Labor Party to discredit her.

Mr Nathan Rees was chief of staff for Mr Orkopoulos’s office for about a year until August 4, 2006. This takes into account the time when Gillian Sneddon claims that she was being discredited over the Orkopoulos allegations. continue reading » »

Background

Hunter Water Corporation referred its proposed Tillegra Dam project to the Department of Environment Water Heritage and the Arts in late 2008. This was to see whether the project would trigger the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act (1999).

The project did trigger the EPBC Act (1999) and it has been deemed a “controlled action” by Peter Garrett’s department because of its possible effect on the Hunter Estuary Wetlands, listed under the Ramsar convention as being a wetlands of international significance.

This all means that Peter Garrett has the final say on the proposed Tillegra Dam going ahead and can put conditions on any approval.

In a recent (28/1/2009) Newcastle Herald poll over 90% of the 329 respondents voted for “the wetlands” in the poll question ‘What’s more important: preserving Hunter wetlands or building Tillegra dam to safeguard our water supply?’.

Please read the facts below and write a letter to Minister Garrett. Sample letters can be downloaded from here and another here.

Facts on Wetlands and the Hunter Estuary Wetlands

Please fell free to include some or all of below in your letter to Mr Garrett.

· It is estimated that over 50% of NSW wetlands have been destroyed or highly modified since European settlement

· The Hunter Estuary Wetlands comprise the Kooragang Nature Reserve and the Shortland Wetlands (Wetlands Centre Australia).

· Kooragang is considered one of the most important bird study areas of NSW and is extremely important feeding and roosting site for migratory shorebirds

· Features of these wetlands include a freshwater coastal estuarine mangrove-lined creek (near natural), constructed freshwater lagoons (artificial wetlands), mangrove and salt marsh. All of these features have been given priority under the Ramsar Convention

· At least 38 species of migratory birds sighted at Kooragang and 21 species at Shortland are listed under international treaties

· Kooragang supports 15 species and Shortland 7 species of migratory shorebirds. These birds have also used this site during a critical seasonal stage in their breeding cycle

· The Hunter Estuary Wetlands have been an important refuge site during times of inland drought

· Hydraulic stress, due to reduced flooding, altered hydrological regimes and reduced water supply, is thought to be the key threat to most marine/inland wetlands in Australia. Hunter Estuary Wetlands is in this category.

· The Williams River , along with the Paterson make up 40% of the flows of the Hunter River.

· Aquatic ecologist, Dr Keith Bishop reports that the flows from the Williams are particularly important during drought periods (times of low freshwater flows) to help mitigate salt intrusion.

· There has been little research on the cumulative effect caused by the proposed dam in conjunction with the already large extractions made by Hunter Water at Jerrys Plains and Seaham.

· The water requirements at the Hunter Estuary Wetlands are unknown at present. This must be fully investigated before any decision which would so drastically alter natural flows is taken. The precautionary principle must be applied - Where there are threats of serious or irreversible environmental damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.

· Minister Garrett and his Government made a commitment to protect Australia’s Ramsar wetlands after the “poor administration and inaction of the previous government”- 2nd February 2009 media release in response to the Snapshot Report on our Ramsar Wetlands.

Don’t leave it too late. Tickets for our benefit gig at Dungog RSL on Saturday June 6 featuring the Reels can now be prebooked and purchased over the Internet. Details are here.

Ordered via our email form or otherwise prebooked: Adult - $20, Child - $10, Family - $50.

At the door on the night: Adult - $25, Child - $10, Family - $65.

Adults are 18 years and over; Family is 2 adults and 2 or more children; no other concessions.

Selective Figures Won’t Convince Voters on the Need for the Proposed Tillegra Dam

Kevin Young, General Manager of Hunter Water, has continued to treat the ratepayers of the Hunter with contempt with his release (NH, April 3, $1.2 billion to flow in Tillegra booster) of a few projections from a Monash University study into the economic benefits of the proposed Tillegra Dam.

“This is typical spruiking by the CEO of Hunter Water”, Sally Corbett, Chair, No Tillegra Dam Group, stated. “ Mr Young has released only limited information from this study. No one else has seen these figures. With studies, there is generally a balance of data and information. It is interesting to note that none of the negative impacts of the proposed dam have been reported here. Perhaps a study should be conducted into the other side of the equation, including the real costs of the Tillegra proposal, the effects on the Hunter economy over years of increased water bills, the losses of primary production, the cost of increased greenhouse gases and the impact on the environment. We have been asking Hunter Water to conduct a full Benefit Cost Analysis for this proposal and they have ignored our requests.” continue reading » »

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