Fish-lift plan fails to dampen anger over Queensland dam

Plans to build a major new dam in Queensland have sparked angry protests, with locals and environmentalists claiming it will threaten the survival of several fish species as well as destroying valuable farming country.

The state Government says the Traveston Crossing Dam, proposed for the Sunshine Coast hinterland, will secure the future water needs of southeast Queensland, Australia's fastest-growing region.

The Government recently approved the dam, which is now awaiting a final ruling by the federal Environmental Minister, Peter Garrett.

Opponents, who demonstrated on horseback last weekend, have highlighted the threat to the rare lungfish, considered the oldest living link to the first animals to walk on earth.

It is estimated that there are only a few thousand left in Australia, all of them in rivers and streams in southeast Queensland, including the Mary River, site of the new dam.

The state Government proposes to install a "fish lift" that would enable lungfish to continue swimming upstream once the dam has been built.

But critics say a similar corridor established at another dam in the area has been a failure, with only three tagged fish using it over the past three years.

The A$1.6 billion Traveston Crossing Dam was proposed in 2006, at the height of the drought, which parched southeast Queensland. The area has had good rains in the past year, but the Government believes the dam is still needed.

Deputy Premier Paul Lucas said yesterday: "Don't sit back and think just because it's rained a bit in the past year or so that we can forget the importance of continuing to build the water grid. Or in 10 years' time we'll get to where we were again and people will say, 'Why didn't you build Traveston?"'

Opponents are sceptical, and say that the dam threatens not only the lungfish, but also a species of cod and a turtle. The Australian lungfish is said to be the most primitive of the world's five remaining species of lungfish, which were the first animals to "walk on fins" and breathe air.

Queensland ministers have angered dairy farmers by suggesting that they, not the dam, are the biggest threat to marine life.