CAPE York Sustainable Futures hopes to secure funding to do a feasibility study on the potential for an irrigation area in Lakeland.
Speaking to the North Queensland Register, CYSF executive officer Trish Butler said there was a real need for more water to ensure future food security.
“CYSF has been able to sit down with the growers and talk to them and come up with a proposal,” Ms Butler said. “We are looking to do a feasibility on the viability of a dam or irrigation area. We are getting land, water and economy assessed. The sooner that happens the better because we desperately need water.
“We have always suggested that it has the potential to come up to the Hann River if enough water is available to irrigate crops.”
CYSF has applied to the federal government’s $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.
Ms Butler said Minister for Northern Australia Senator Matt Canavan, Federal Member for Leichhardt Warren Entsch and former State Member for Cook David Kempton had recently inspected potential water storage sites.
She said this was the closest the region had been to securing more water.
“Everybody is screaming for economic outcomes to be obtained yet we have all of these impediments stopping progress,” Ms Butler said.
“We need to be enabling people in the region to be heard as opposed to people from outside the region who have commanded the agenda to date.
“They have only led to poverty and division within the Cape.”
