THE LNP is calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the design and construction of the failed Paradise Dam on the Burnett River near Biggenden.
Just 13 years after the $240 million dam was commissioned, the Palaszczuk government has announced plans to permanently reduce the storage facility's storage capacity to 42 per cent, making it Queensland's biggest infrastructure failure.
SunWater is already in the process of releasing 105,000 megalitres in an effort to improve the safety of the dam designed in part to protect Bundaberg from flooding. 80,000ML of that water has been gifted to downstream farmers.
Paradise Dam has a 600m concrete well, which is up to 37m high. Work to lower the spillway by 5m will begin in 2020.
LNP Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said Queenslanders deserved to know if the dam had been properly designed and built and what can be done to remedy the situation.
It is extraordinary that a modern dam cannot last more than 13 years.
- Deb Frecklington
"It is extraordinary that a modern dam cannot last more than 13 years," Ms Frecklington said.
"Farmers and businesses have made major investments based on the water security that the dam provides, but that security has now been destroyed."
LNP Member for Bundaberg, David Batt, said a parliamentary inquiry would give people the opportunity to have their say and share their stories with the full protection of parliamentary privilege.
"Queenslanders paid good money for this dam but it seems all they will be left with is a puddle," Mr Batt said.
LNP member for Burnett Stephen Bennett said Labor was refusing to answer questions about whether insurance covers these construction and design issues.
"We need to make sure that the people of Wide Bay get the answers they deserve and that this never happens again," Mr Bennett said.
The LNP says parliament's State Development, Natural Resources and Agricultural Industry Development Committee needs to investigate the Paradise Dam's design, construction and operation; and the Palaszczuk government's decision to lower the dam wall by 5m.
The LNP's call follows Natural Resources Minister Anthony Lynham's announcement that an independent review would be held into Paradise Dam and the local community's readiness for another significant flood.
Dr Lynham said Cyclone Oswald and the large flood in 2013 devastated Bundaberg and caused significant damage in the dam's vicinity.
"Following that event, then Minister for Energy and Water Supply, Mark McArdle (LNP), commissioned a review of the dam to assess damage, Sunwater's response to the flood event, remedial works and updates to the emergency action plan," he said.
"We need to ensure that downstream residents are protected if there was a repeat of that 2013 event, and that's what this review will look at.
"Disaster management is about continuous improvement. Every time Queensland is faced with a disaster, we learn something invaluable from the experience, and we apply that to future preventive actions and responses."
KAP leader Robbie Katter said it was unfathomable that, with almost two thirds of Queensland drought-declared, the Palaszczuk government was prepared to spend money on reducing water storage capacity.
Mr Katter said rural and regional Queenslanders were desperate to construct dams, not deconstruct them, and this latest decision showed Labor had no real interest in investing in the state's economic future.
"Here we are, with $230 million in funding from the federal government, trying to get the Hughenden Irrigation Project and Hell's Gate Dam built in the north," Mr Katter said.
"Further south we've got the state government taking its first real affirmative action on water storage in many years except for the fact that they're not trying to construct a dam, they're trying to deconstruct one.
"We have towns starring down the barrel of having no water supply and our agricultural industry in the north and the west is on its knees and is completely hamstrung as they can't irrigate.
"If ever there was time to reflect on the fact we need to conserve and utilise water in large volumes, it's now."
Mr Katter said while he understood there were serious concerns about Paradise Dam's ability to withstand a major flood, the answer was not to reduce the region's overall water storage capacity.
"I hope the State Government doesn't see lowering the spillway as case closed," Mr Katter said.
