Letters to the editor

Elsewhere, water conservation virtually stopped when Don Dunstan halted the building of Chowilla Dam on the Murray in 1970 and Bob Brown’s Greens halted the Franklin Dam in 1983 (and almost every other dam proposal since then).

The Darling River water management disaster shows that we risk water shortages because our population and water needs have more than doubled and much of our stored water has been sold off or released to “the environment”.

However, we regularly see floods of water being shed by the Great Dividing Range, most of it ending up in the Pacific Ocean, while to the west the watershed is in drought. 
Our engineers know how to lay large pipelines over hundreds of kilometres to export natural gas and bore road and rail tunnels through mountains and under cities and harbours.

But we cannot find the funds or the courage to build a couple of dams on the rainy side of the Great Divide somewhere between the Ross River at Townsville and the Clarence River at Grafton and some pumps, tunnels and pipes to use and release it into the thirsty Darling River basin.

- V. Forbes, Washpool

I agree (with petitioner Chris Spruce). The state government and the Logan City Council really need to do something about a second access road to and from Flagstone promptly. The fires at Flagstone, New Beith and Undullah have burnt for over a week and at times came very close to the high density housing in Flagstone.

For safety reasons this road is important.

- D. Blackburner, via Facebook

Chris Spruce should have taken MP Charis Mullen for a drive to show her how close the fires got to homes on the other side of the railway line.

- B.T. Sheaves, via Facebook

Kooralbyn needs one as well. It’s one way in, one way out.

- S. Clarke, via Facebook

MP Jon Krause and Transport Minister Mark Bailey trade barbs over Mount Lindesay Highway work. Blah, blah, blah. Bailey, you have not spent a cent so stop carrying on like you are the Mount Lindesay saviour.

- G. Byers, via Facebook

Mark Bailey, aka Mango cube, looks like a good feed would kill him. I am sending him a huge meal.

- K. Lock, via Facebook