Paper Petition

The petition of residents of Queensland draws to the attention of the House the proposed residential development being developed by Mr Tony Ellis. We largely rely upon bore water for our water needs. We do not want Mr Ellis to pump from his bores purely for the purpose of filling his dams to beautify his land. Mr Ellis owns rural property close to our properties and has undertaken extensive earthworks in anticipation of a residential development, even though he is yet to submit an application or even have the land re-zoned for this purpose. He has built four large dams on a flood plain and has sunk about 12 water bores. We believe that filling these dams with good potable water simply for beautification is wasteful, and it potentially depletes the available water for other residents. We estimate that one dam alone, may need around 40 million litres to fill it and regular pumping to keep them topped-up. We can see a number of pumps have been positioned around Mr Ellis’ property and we feel that he is on the verge of extracting and moving vast quantities of underground bore water. We are advised by the Department of Natural Resources in Gympie that that department has no control over underground water south of Bundaberg.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to intervene to prevent the pumping of vast quantities of potable bore water from Traveston for non- rural use.