Lockyer alluvial groundwater

Eligibility - Electors of the Division of Lockyer
Principal Petitioner:
James Galletly
1 Hill Street
GATTON QLD 4343
Total Signatures - 10
Sponsoring Member: Ian Rickuss MP
Posting Date: 1/12/2015
Tabled Date: 1/12/2015
Responded By: Hon Dr Anthony Lynham MP on 4/1/2016
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

The petition of electors of the Division of Lockyer draws to the attention of the House that they are aggrieved that, having been responsible for known unsustainable use of water for irrigation for at least 45 years, the officers of the Department of Natural Resources and Mines are still unable to explain to the local water users ‘how the water supply system works'.

 

Your petitioners inform the House that, after being depleted by pumping for irrigation, Lockyer alluvial groundwater is replenished when water is drawn up from the surface of the remaining groundwater by capillarity, using water supplied by baseflow in creeks. The baseflow is outflow from springs supplied by flow in basalt aquifers on the Main Range at an elevation of some 500 metres above sea level. The basalt aquifers are replenished by deep percolation of rainfall on the high basalt landscape and deliver an annual discharge estimated in 1949 at 32 500 ML/annum. At that time, baseflow continued throughout creek systems for close to 365 days per year. This water is absorbed slowly into the sand/gravel aquifers in the base of the alluvium and transferred in them to aquifer margins thus creating a large surface area from which groundwater is replenished.

 

Your petitioners request the House to direct the Minister for Natural Resource and Mines to use this explanation as a basis for future management of the water supply to the alluvium as a single unit using the principles of integrated catchment management and ecologically sustainable development.