Burdekin Basin Water Plan Submission

1. Townsville Enterprise

Townsville Enterprise is the peak economic development and destination management organisation for North Queensland. We aim to attract major government and private investment to the region encompassing the Local Government Areas of Townsville, Palm Island, Burdekin Shire, Hinchinbrook Shire and Charters Towers Region.

For more than 30 years, Townsville Enterprise has played a critical role in leading the economic progress for the region through strong political advocacy, investment attraction, tourism development and by promoting Townsville North Queensland as a place to visit, invest and live.

We are a not-for-profit organisation predominantly funded by our 400 members (businesses in North Queensland) and local government.

Our purpose is to secure the future of Townsville North Queensland.

Water security, next to affordable energy, is a key concern for our members and therefore we are taking a keen interest in the Burdekin Basin Water Plan review.

2. Executive Summary

The new Burdekin Basin Water Plan must address long-term, sustainable water planning and resource management and will need to be flexible to allow for the development of our region into the future.

Since the establishment of the Burdekin Falls Dam in 1984, the population of North Queensland has almost doubled and is set to grow by a further 100,000 people in the next decade. The investment pipeline for committed and proposed projects for the region is currently forecast to be $64.9 billion with 68,136 additional jobs. These major projects increase the demand on the region’s water supply by increasing the need for water to support population growth and for industrial use.

Water planning, in times of economic and population growth, as well as combatting the impacts of climate change, means it can never stand still and must be a flexible tool to achieve the best outcome. The main aim of the revised Burdekin Basin Water Plan must be to create a plan that provides North Queensland with a long-term, sustainable, economic, environmental and social future.

Water needs to be actively governed and the new Plan must be well informed on demand, environmental and social impacts - not only in the existing known part of Burdekin system but with a holistic view of the overall system Several business cases and feasibility studies have been developed for the region and the insights and information must be taken into consideration when developing the new Burdekin Basin Water Plan

The Plan must address the impacts of climate change as rainfalls become less predictable in the future. Significant and long-term water storage will be vital moving forward. The Burdekin is also characterised by an extreme variation of annual rainfall between years, with wet years regularly followed by a series of El Niño-induced drought years (CSIRO 2002). The effects of climate change on water supply are high and becoming increasingly important as a factor for any future water planning activity.

The Great Barrier Reef is Queensland’s greatest natural asset and must be protected. The Burdekin Basin has been identified as the largest contributor of fine sediment to the Great Barrier Reef in the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan. As protection of the Reef increases and the pressures from climate change increases, the creation of more sustainable farming options upstream means that agriculture can be moved away from coastal areas. This will release pressure on the Reef and improve agricultural resilience By developing high agricultural cropping and horticulture in the Upper Burdekin, sediment and nutrient loads delivered to the downstream Burdekin Falls Dam may be reduced through world leading land management and agricultural practices. A new Burdekin Basin Water Plan which takes a holistic view of the river system will encourage agriculture away from the Reef and provide for new and emerging industry supply to meet the needs of Australia.

Townsville North Queensland is on the cusp of major growth and development for both existing and emerging industries. The region has benefitted from the stability of its core industries including Defence, logistics, mining, education and health and has expanded its horizons to include emerging industries such as renewable energy, hydrogen critical minerals processing and manufacturing, agritech and aquaculture. The Plan must understand the long-term demand case for the entire Burdekin catchment and must allow for priority allocation to existing and new industries in broader North Queensland. The Plan must take into consideration that industry will require long-term water security all year round to make the required investments.

The transition towards a green economy requires improvements to the water environment without harming prospects for existing economic development and population growth. This implies not only making social improvements compatible with the preservation of water resources but also finding new and innovative opportunities for economic growth and social development through sustainable water management Over the past two years, Townsville North Queensland has made incredible progress in the development of the emerging hydrogen industry. Several projects have already commenced construction for green hydrogen production in our region. This industry will grow as the drive for hydrogen exports from global trading partners increase. The region is in a prime position to take advantage of the green hydrogen revolution, but large quantities of raw water will be required for the emerging hydrogen industry over the next decade in North Queensland.

Engagement, and consultation with Traditional Owners is an important component of any development process in our country. Allocation of water to areas for growth and development in agriculture or industry including the Upper Burdekin must not only address agricultural and economic development related service needs but also the needs of the Traditional Owners. A holistic Plan, which considers the opportunity in the Upper Burdekin will provide much needed opportunity and employment for Traditional Owners from this region.

To develop the most effective and efficient water strategy, government must understand the economic demand, population growth, environmental and social needs of the entire river system. The aim must be to use every drop of water within the regulated environmental flows wisely. Currently, most of the water allocations are in the Lower Burdekin. To unleash the unused or unallocated buckets of water allocations that have sat unused and underutilised for decades, further investigations and reviews in the Great Barrier Reef and the Lower and Upper Burdekin area will be required to understand what a long-term water development strategy needs to look like for the future of North Queensland

3. The Burdekin Burdekin Basin and Land Use

Since the first small paddock of sugar cane was planted on the Burdekin flood plain in 1875, the area just south of Townsville, has grown to become the largest sugar producing region in the country –supporting 2,579 jobs. Every year, 1.7 million tonnes of refined sugar are exported through the Port of Townsville globally

The Lower Burdekin’s cane industry, which is spread across approximately 80,000 hectares and worth over half a billion in sugar exports per year has become the agricultural life blood of regional North Queensland.

North of the Burdekin River, water for irrigation is supplied by SunWater through the Burdekin Haughton water supply scheme, which includes supply from the Burdekin Falls Dam.

To the south, Lower Burdekin Water (LBW) delivers irrigation water from the largest replenished coastal aquifer in the country via underground bores.

Since the establishment of the Burdekin Dam in 1984, the population in North Queensland has almost doubled and is set to grow by a further 100,000 people in the next decade. Industry and population growth, new infrastructure such as the Haughton pipeline, increased globally funded demand, together with the threats of climate change, will result in more challenges about how we manage our water supply going forward.

Across the Lower Burdekin region, water is distributed through a complex network of weirs, balancing storages, water recycling pits, pump stations, channels, waterways, lagoons and groundwater recharge pits. While many investigations have been completed to fully understand the complexity of this area and the impact of additional water storage required, further works will be needed to ensure long-term water security can be provided to existing water users and to allow for increasing demand in the future within environmental flows.

Almost 90% of land use within the Burdekin Basin is for pastoral grazing, approximately 5% for conservation areas and natural environments and 1% of the region contains irrigated agriculture, primarily associated with sugarcane farming and horticultural products around Ayr. Mining is also important in the region and makes up approximately 0.1% of the land area (Bureau of Meteorology, 2019)

Urban and industrial demand for water is forecast to rise across the region over the coming decades, driven by population growth and industrial growth. Additionally, water security for these customers is of increasing concern because of ongoing changes in climatic conditions and resulting changes in rainfall patterns.

Upper Burdekin

Queensland Agricultural Land Audit report identified significant areas of land suitable for irrigated agriculture. Charters Towers accounts for 6.7% of Queensland’s total agricultural production by value, while covering only 4.6% of total area of the state.

The upper Burdekin currently relies on cattle grazing.

• grazing native vegetation (97.8% of total irrigation zones area)

• irrigated cropping (0.4% of total irrigation zones area)

• water storage – intensive use/farm dams (0.02% of total irrigation zones area).

Land Suitability and Soils

The Dalrymple Shire (the Shire), situated in the Upper Burdekin catchment typically comprises 45% cover of sands to sandy loams, 44% cover of loamy surfaced soils (sandy clay loams to clay loams), 9% cover of clay soils and approximately 1% rocky outcrop comprising basalt flow lines and sandstone outcrops.

The region of the Upper Burdekin relies on beef cattle production and, to a much lesser extent, dryland and irrigated crops. Grazing is the major land use in this region, covering about 94% of the total Burdekin catchment area. Cattle numbers and beef productivity vary greatly across the catchment.

The Queensland Agricultural Land Audit (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, 2013), identified the following potential agricultural activities suitable for the land in the Upper Burdekin:

• annual horticulture (central irrigation zone)

• intensive livestock (central irrigation zone)

• native forestry (all areas)

• pasture production (all areas)

• perennial horticulture (some parts of all areas).

Climate and Rainfall

Stream flow in the Burdekin Basin is highly seasonal, with 82% of flow occurring from January to March. It varies considerably from year to year and generally corresponds with rainfall. Rainfall distribution is also strongly seasonal, with 70-85% occurring in November to April Significant and long-term water storage is vital moving forward as rainfalls will become less predictable in the future due to climate change. The Burdekin is also characterised by an extreme variation of annual rainfall between years, with wet years regularly followed by a series of El Niño-induced drought years (CSIRO 2002). The effects of climate change on water supply are high and becoming an increasingly important as a factor for any future water planning activity.

The Queensland Department of Environment and Science (DES) website presents information on the modelled impacts that climate change will have on temperature, evaporation, and rainfall in the Burdekin River catchment under two future climate change scenarios, known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The two scenarios, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, represent different future concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their impact on climate change projections. RCP 4.5 represents concentrations of greenhouses that limit global temperature rise to 2°C. RCP8.5 represents concentrations of greenhouse gases continuing current emissions trajectories.

Under the RCP4.5 scenario, median evaporation would increase by 4% by the year 2050 and median rainfall would reduce by 1%. Under the RCP8.5 scenario evaporation would increase by 6%, whilst rainfall would reduce by 7%. The results in Table 3-29 show a reduction in flow of 2% under RCP4.5 and reduction of 11% under RCP8.5.

Considering these forecasted changes, the crop and water balance models were updated to assess the impact on water demands and water supply. Crop water demand would increase by 1% and the area that can be irrigated by a given storage volume would reduce by 4%, under RCP4.5. RCP8.5 results in an increase of 9% in crop water demands and a reduction of 16% in the irrigated area.

The climate in the Townsville area could change significantly under a worst-case climate change scenario RCP8.5. This would result in higher temperatures, hotter and more frequent hot days, more intense downpours, less frequent but more intense tropical cyclones, rising sea level, more frequent sea level extremes and warmer and more acidic seas.

High climate variability is likely to remain the major factor influencing rainfall changes in the next few decades. Rainfall changes for 2070 continue to show a large amount of variability. However, there may be slight declines in spring rainfall by the end of the century. The intensity of heavy rainfall events is likely to increase. Tropical cyclones are projected to become less frequent, but with increases in the proportion of the most intense storms. This makes the requirement to capture and store water essential to service users during prolonged dry spells.

In terms of agricultural water use, increasing evapotranspiration and decreasing soil moisture has the potential to lead to an increased reliance on irrigation to maintain soil moisture levels. Changes to the likelihood and intensity of rainfall events, along with changes to intra-annual rainfall patterns would have impacts on the volume and timing of irrigation requirements. Given the trend towards high-value, perennial horticulture, any increase in the frequency of extreme droughts would have a commensurate impact on the productivity and viability of these operations without access to reliable water supplies.

Great Barrier Reef

Soil erosion is well documented within the Dalrymple Shire, including within the Upper Burdekin; typically associated with granodiorite, Burdekin alluvium and sedimentary rocks which covers one third of the Shire. In the Upper Burdekin current land practice is dominated by grazing and there is extensive gully erosion, which is delivering large volumes of sediment and associated particulate nutrients into the Burdekin River.

To reduce the potential for erosion as well as sediment and nutrient runoff, preferred irrigation areas are situated on slopes <3%, with waterway buffers ranging from 25 metres for low-order streams to 100 metres for major waterways (including the Burdekin River). Salinity is also recognised as a significant issue in the Burdekin catchment.

In the Lower Burdekin area, high rates of fertiliser application and large losses of irrigation water to waterways, wetlands and coastal ecosystems can significantly impact ecosystem health and function such as nutrient enrichment, water oxygen depletion and fish kills. Rising water tables are also evident in the Lower Burdekin irrigation areas, which can lead to water logging, increased salinity in the root zone and altered productivity.

The large water volume of Lake Dalrymple provides a buffering effect as the holding time in the lake allows for sediments (and associated particulate nutrients) to settle out of suspension before being released to the lower Burdekin River and the Great Barrier Reef. There is limited buffering of pollutant runoff from sugar cane areas of the Lower Burdekin, which flow into coastal ecosystems and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park via surface and groundwater.

The current extensive gully erosion associated with land clearing and grazing introduces large volumes of sediment into the waterways and fine sediment can travel through the system to the receiving environment which supports seagrass, mangrove and coral reef ecosystems and recreational and commercial fisheries. This has significant negative impacts on the health of the Reef. The change of agricultural practices in the Upper Burdekin will introduce higher concentration of nutrients locally, but overall, in the system there will be a reduction in nutrients and sediment loads due to reduced water volumes.

The Commonwealth and Queensland Governments developed the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan (Reef 2050 Plan) to provide an overarching framework to protect and manage the Great Barrier Reef to 2050. Under the Reef 2050 Plan, the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan 2017–2022 seeks to improve the quality of water flowing from the catchments adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. It addresses all land-based sources of water pollution including run- off from urban, industrial, and public lands but recognises that most of the pollution comes from agricultural activities.

The Burdekin Basin has been identified as the largest contributor of fine sediment to the Great Barrier Reef in the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan. The 2025 end-of-catchment anthropogenic load reductions targets for the Burdekin Basin are 60% for dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), 30% for fine sediment, 30% for particulate phosphorus and 30% for particulate nitrogen.

As protection of the Reef increases, through the implementation of Reef 2050 Plan policy and increasing pressures from climate change (including rising sea levels), the creation of more sustainable farming options upstream means that agriculture can be moved away from coastal areas. This will release pressure on the Reef (particularly nutrients and pesticides) and improve agricultural resilience/food security.

By developing high agricultural cropping and horticulture in the Upper Burdekin, sediment and nutrient loads delivered to the downstream Burdekin Falls Dam may be reduced through world leading land management and agricultural practices that could be implemented in the development of the land (for example buffer strips along waterways, recycle pits, controlled nutrient application, capturing runoff for re-use, compliance with the Reef Regulations), and water consumption for the developments and evaporation from the Dam. Expanding irrigated agriculture in the upper (rather than lower) parts of the Burdekin Basin, will provide additional system buffering capacity against pollutant export to the Great Barrier Reef.

A holistic river system water plan can assist in developments which are beneficial for the Great Barrier Reef, taking into consideration environmental impacts as well encouraging development of agriculture away from the reef and provide for new and emerging industry supply to meet the needs of Australia.

To do this, foresight is required to invest into understanding the river system as a whole and how the increases for water supply can be met into the future. Further studies encompassing demand and supply addressing positive economic, environmental, and social outcomes will be required to gain a full understanding of the holistic river system from the upper reaches of the Burdekin to the Lower Burdekin and beyond to the Great Barrier Reef.

4. Need for Long-Term Water Planning for the Future Prosperity of North Queensland

Water is not only essential for meeting basic human needs like drinking water and sanitation but also to produce single commodities, industrial processes, goods, and services Water is also fundamental for North Queensland’s economy. Development prospects in any region, state or nation are propelled or constrained depending on the way water resources are legislated and managed.

Doing nothing or the same as the past decades is not an option. Water planning, in times of economic and population growth as well as climate change, means it can never stand still and must be a flexible tool to achieve the best outcome. The main aim of the revised Burdekin Basin Water Plan must be to create a plan that provides North Queensland with a long-term, sustainable, economic, environmental, and social future.

The fragile border between social conflict often depends on how the benefits and costs of water use are shared amongst individuals and industries. Ultimately, the future of our region depends on the ability to provide the critical environmental and water services the economy and society depend upon.

For all these reasons, decision making on how much water to use in the economy or to conserve in nature cannot be left to individual interest – it is a collective task. Water needs to be actively governed with a focus on long-term planning, that is well informed on demand, environmental and social impacts - not only in the existing known part of Burdekin system but with a holistic view of the overall system. Investigating and having a well understood environmental monitoring approach not only in the existing Lower Burdekin catchment but also in areas away from the coastal area is important to understand the future water security opportunities in the catchment. The new Plan must review the entire system and identify the needs for what water is available in what area of the system and how each part of the Burdekin system could be used to ensure long-term water security for North Queensland in the context of economic demand, social, environmental and climate change.

Water planning should not only focus on building short term or maintaining existing infrastructure to satisfy current rising water demands that are a result of economic and population growth, but should provide pathways for government and/or the private sector to make investments ahead of time, for example, security in the face of the global food and energy crises, droughts and uncertainty of future water supply due to climate change, flood control, self-treatment and depuration, biodiversity support, landscape and recreational opportunities and also the regulation of the water cycle which the provision of water depends on.

Water planning and water allocations to certain areas must be more flexible to allow for innovative and new projects to be able to be considered within the Plan, no matter what part of the catchment they are in. A holistic approach to the catchment to ensure water security is key as well as gaining a better understanding of the overall catchment and river system, including the Great Barrier Reef and the Upper Burdekin, is absolutely critical.

5. Long-term Water security and Priority Water Critical for North Queensland Economic Development

The North Queensland Economy

North Queensland is currently home to over 240,758 (2022) people. Over recent years the North Queensland economy has estimated to have grown to $19 billion. This is in part due to the economic diversity of the region, which has ensured that North Queensland has been able to withstand periods of economic uncertainty, including the COVID-19 pandemic. With a booming project pipeline, this trend for growth will see the economy grow to $43.1 billion by 2050 The forecast for growth assumes that several catalytic infrastructure investments are made in the region, which will drive considerable economic activity. This forecast will see the population increase to 614,020 also by 2050 with an annual growth rate of 3.2%. The region’s growing population is indicative of a future demand for both industrial and domestic supply of water, as the current population has increased by a further 35.6% since the construction of the Burdekin Falls Dam in 1984, North Queensland’s only dam.

Economic Drivers and Projects

Townsville North Queensland is on the cusp of major growth and development for both existing and emerging industries. The region has benefitted from the stability of its core industries including defence, logistics, mining, education, and health and has expanded its horizons to include emerging industries such as renewable energy, hydrogen critical minerals processing and manufacturing, agritech and aquaculture.

The investment pipeline for committed and proposed projects currently is forecasted to be $64.9 billion in committed and proposed projects with 68,136 total additional jobs These major projects increase the demand on the region’s water supply by increasing the need for water for population growth and industrial use.

Some of the major committed and underway projects in the region include:

• $1.2 billion Defence and Defence Industry investment

• $1 billion Australian Singaporean Military Initiative

• $2 billion Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct generating over 15,000 direct and indirect jobs and supporting $815 million in additional Gross State Product (Townsville City Council)

• $2 billion Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub (TECH - Queensland Pacific Metals)

• $5 billion CopperString 2032

• $242 million Channel Upgrade Project (Port of Townsville)

• $777 million Kidston Pumped Hydro (Genex)

• $274 million Haughton Pipeline Stage 2 (Townsville City Council and Queensland Government)

• $1 billion Public and Private Hospital Upgrades and Developments

• $35 million NQ Spark (Townsville City Council, TropiQ, Townsville Hospital and Health Service, JCU (James Cook University))

(Source: Opportunity Townsville North Queensland, Townsville Enterprise (2023))

North Queensland Agriculture industry is set to grow by 5.1% per year. Diversification away from sugar and the global food crises will require 2,000 forecasted employment opportunities in the region.

Several new Dam proposals and business cases were recently completed. This work and insights must be considered in the plan.

Project Burdekin Falls Dam 2 metre raising

Hells Gates Dam The Urannah Project New

60,000 hectares of irrigated land

Economic value $6 billion

16,100 hectares of irrigated land

Economic value not public

North Queensland’s mining and renewable energy sector will continue to grow with the significant $5 billion investment into the CopperString 2032 project. The construction of this critical infrastructure will not only unlock affordable renewable energy, but also the significant new economy minerals deposits located in this region. These minerals will be used to develop electric car batteries, solar panels, and other decarbonisation technology. This project will be a major enabler for establishing green advanced manufacturing in North Queensland, CopperString is set to increase the use and export of critical minerals such as copper, zinc, vanadium, and cobalt from Mount Isa, supporting the growing clean energy and hydrogen industries in Townsville.

New projects include the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct, which will be Northern Australia’s foremost eco-industrial precinct for advanced manufacturing, processing technology and emerging industries. This project is expected to create upwards of 14,000 jobs and deliver an additional $815 million in economic benefit. The Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct will be host to several new projects in emerging industries such as Edify Energy’s Hydrogen Electrolyser Plant and Queensland Pacific Metals’ Townsville Energy Chemical Hub (TECH) which will supply high-grade advanced battery materials to international markets.

The North Queensland health industry has received significant investment from the Queensland Government, with the $530 million upgrade to Northern Australia’s largest tertiary hospital. This is also followed by the development of a private hospital and upgrades to existing key infrastructure.

TropiQ Townsville’s Tropical Intelligence and Health Precinct, situated in the nexus of James Cook University (JCU) and Townsville University Hospital (TUH) is another key project for the region, generating an additional $1 billion in economic output for Townsville by 2035. Health and educational facilities are crucial for regional population growth and these developments are expected to increase the population in the region, bringing 21,261 workers and their families to the region. Sustainable water resources are not only required for this sector of industry but for the population growth that comes with the increase in jobs.

The Plan must understand the long-term demand case for the entire Burdekin catchment and must allow for priority allocation to existing and new industries in broader North Queensland. The Plan must understand that industry will require long-term water security all year round to make the required investments. It must also recognise how global issues such as food and energy crisis, geopolitical tensions might require water allocation beyond the demand currently known. The Plan must provide flexibility and a holistic view within the regulatory frame to make changes to allocation in the overall Burdekin system. The Plan must be based on rigorous research and monitoring as well as allowing for innovation and world leading technology and new farming practices to be used to enable investment in new and existing areas in the overall Burdekin catchment.

6. Long-term Water Security and Priority Water Critical for North Queensland Population Growth

Since the construction of the Burdekin Dam in 1987, the population of North Queensland has almost doubled from 156,186 to 240,758.

North Queensland is currently experiencing a period of historically low unemployment rate and is currently sitting at 2.2% (March 2023). Job vacancies continue to increase as a result, particularly in the demand for higher skilled jobs.

This demand for labour is expected to grow, with future job forecasts finding that over the next 30 years, North Queensland will need a significant increase in its labour force requiring an additional 102,201 workers by 2050 above status quo projections to support future projects and industries.

The industries with the strongest employment growth by 2049-2050 will be:

• Health Care and Social Assistance +44,360 FTE

• Accommodation and food services +22,190 FTE

• Public administration and safety (defence) +18,472 FTE

• Manufacturing +13,990 FTE

• Education and training +15,793 FTE

• Agriculture +13,370 FTW

Source: AEC data (2023, unreleased) and Internet Vacancy Index (2023), Jobs and Skills Australia.

A significant amount of population growth will occur over the next few decades in North Queensland and the new Burdekin Basin Water Plan must acknowledge and prepare for that population growth

Housing Demand

Housing availability and affordability are key issues being faced across Australia and North Queensland has not been isolated from the impacts of this national housing shortage. The rental vacancy rate for the region is currently sitting at below 1%, which is a historic low. To resolve this issue and to meet future population growth estimates, there will need to be growth in the number of dwellings in the inner city and across the Townsville Local Government Area (LGA). A Housing Demand Assessment for the Townsville LGA (2022) by economics firm AEC found that across the Townsville LGA, an additional 9,142 dwellings are expected to be required by 2026, with most of these dwellings (78.4%) expected to be separate houses. By 2042, this number is expected to grow to 34,228. In Townsville’s inner city, an additional 1,574 dwellings are expected to be required by 2026, and by 2041 this number will grow to 4,489. Most of the demand for attached dwellings in the Townsville LGA is expected to occur in the inner city, which will account for 51% of total expected growth.

Securing a reliable water source will again be critical for ensuring that the region is able to house a growing population, both in the construction of these new housing estates and the increased domestic demand for water. The average Townsville household uses 400.3kL of water per year. Source: Townsville City Council, Water Consumption (2021).

With a projected housing demand of 9,142 dwellings this would increase water demand for residential purposes by 3,659.54 ML/year.

The transition towards the green economy requires improvements to the water environment without harming prospects for existing economic development and population growth. This implies not only making social improvements compatible with the preservation of water resources but also finding new and innovative opportunities for economic growth and social development through sustainable water management.

Water planning can only contribute to green growth if water is not perceived as a simple policy area (for example, agricultural, energy or industrial policy). In the transition to the green economy, water planning needs to be converted into a cross-cutting policy, to guarantee all other policies and projects – from urban planning to agricultural policy – are coherently agreeing with collective objectives of water planning. Policy coherence is critical because of the limited ability of water ecosystems to meet all the ever increasing and competing demands for water in the economy. Global water demand is increasing due to population growth, rising living standards, and expanding production of agriculture, hydroelectricity, and the many goods and services for which water is an essential input. Water requirements today and in the future cannot be met unless all uses of water are coordinated. Water planning enables the coordination and alignment of the many public policies (such as land use, urban and rural development, manufacturing, and energy policies) and public policy objectives (such as economic efficiency, equity, basic needs coverage or cost recovery) which influence and are influenced by water management.

Deciding on the objectives for a river basin is a political and not a technical exercise. It requires identifying trade-offs between different objectives and decision criteria in water management (such as efficiency, fairness, financial and environmental sustainability). At an operational level, improved water resource management outcomes for the Burdekin Basin would be achieved if the Upper Burdekin and the Lower Burdekin were operated as a combined system with the outlook to enable further water storage systems being developed in the upper Burdekin region in future. This would enhance water security for the Burdekin Falls Dam during low rainfall periods, enable new water storage in other parts of the system- while still allowing high flow events – which are critical to the health of the coastal ecosystems (including the Great Barrier Reef) – to be passed through the system.

A transparent planning process with stakeholder participation at all stages is essential to ensure that all voices are heard. Stakeholder engagement and public participation is essential for effective water planning and requires the cooperation and engagement of a wide range of stakeholders. Public participation helps construct a shared vision of the objectives, opportunities, and challenges as well as collective and individual responsibilities involved in the management of water resources. It helps foster the perception of water as a collective asset to be preserved by cooperation rather than a common pool resource to be depleted by open access and competition. When people are aware of the benefits of this collective cooperation, they have incentives to build a reputation of good behaviour and social responsibility, fines can be perceived as fair, and the threat of moral sanctions can deter misbehaviour. But this collective action can only be based on the common perception that water benefits are distributed fairly. This requires trust that the water authorities represent common interest and follow transparent rules instead of their own discretion. Cooperation also requires that individual behaviour be observable in a way that deviations are detected and incur costs

Building effective participatory water planning therefore requires incentives, and must ensure that decisions are perceived as fair, rules are enforced, and there is transparent and adequate information available to all.

8. Hydrogen and Pumped Hydro

Over the past two years, Townsville North Queensland has made incredible progress in the development of the emerging hydrogen industry. Several projects have already commenced construction for green hydrogen production in our region. This industry will only grow as the drive for hydrogen exports from global trading partners increase. The region is in a prime position to take advantage of the green hydrogen revolution.

Across the region, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has identified that the North West Queensland Energy Hub will be capable of producing 33GW of wind and solar energy as part of their draft Integrated System Plan (2021). A report by Transgrid further investigated the renewable energy potential for the region which highlights the natural advantage of our region the balanced availability and potential for both wind and solar resources.

Large quantities of raw water will be required for the emerging hydrogen industry over the next decade in North Queensland.

Green hydrogen is produced by taking renewable power, high purity water and converting to hydrogen and oxygen gas via electrolysis. The water requirement for green hydrogen is stoichiometrically 9 litres of water of per 1 kilogram of hydrogen produced. This is higher than for natural gas reforming, where some hydrogen is already present in the feedstock (mainly CH4). In addition, commonly overlooked water supply and disposal factors to produce green hydrogen include:

• Significant cooling load for electrolysers – which can require additional 30 to 40 litres of water per 1 kilogram of hydrogen for makeup in water cooled systems. Over time, the stack efficiency of the electrolyser decreases, and most of the efficiency losses report to additional heating of the stack; with the result that the cooling load increases significantly over the lifetime of the stack (typically 8 to 10 years of operational time). The cooling demand for the electrolyser can typically increase by 40% to 70% from beginning of life to end of stack life.

• Other cooling loads – such as the multi-stage compressors with intercooling to compress the produced hydrogen to a suitable pressure for storage or use.

• Raw water feed requiring treatment to meet high purity electrolyser requirements – with around 20% - 40% of the water sent to waste during the treatment process, depending on the quality of the imported raw water.

• Water disposal – due to the increased concentration of feedwater impurities into the waste streams this water can often not be discharged to the environment and requires connection to a waste treatment facility or onsite treatment or disposal.

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Pumped hydro is another renewable source of energy The energy generated through pumped hydro relies on the water cycle, which is driven by the sun, making it renewable. Hydroelectric power is flexible. Some hydropower facilities can quickly go from zero power to maximum output. Because pumped hydro plants can generate power to the grid immediately, they provide essential backup power during major electricity outages or disruptions.

To build effective pumped hydro stations suitable dams will be required Sustainably responsible dam development with high emphasis on environmental responsibility is essential for future water security and green energy stabilisation.

By utilising hydroelectric power, it provides systems stability benefits to the National Electricity Market in an environment where significant oversupply of renewables is apparent in the North Queensland electricity network. This will be beneficial in the move to a decarbonised future for the region and the development and sustainability of the green energy economy.

Due to the large source of renewables in the Hughenden to Townsville area a pumped hydro project in the Upper Burdekin Project would allow the renewable power generated in Hughenden to be stored and backed up. Commercial Feasibility studies have been undertaken and a live volume of water of 9,300 megalitres will be required to operate.

9. Holistic Water Management Across the Upper and Lower Burdekin System Provides Significant Opportunity

The opportunity for the Upper Burdekin development exists with appropriate planning and foresight in terms of water supply. Currently water allocation is difficult to access for this region as it is allocated to the Lower Burdekin The primary service need is to secure water allocation and supply in the Upper Burdekin, to support high value irrigated agricultural and horticultural production and industrial development. This has direct and indirect flow-on benefits, providing long-term secure employment in the region.

Investing in water access in the region is particularly attractive due to the availability of large tracts of highly productive agricultural land and favourable climatic and other environmental conditions. The agricultural land is suitable for a suite of annual horticulture, perennial horticulture and broadacre crops, for which market assessments demonstrated strong demand for the various crop types.

Developing the Upper Burdekin (through ensuring water allocation for the region) provides the opportunity to establish best-practice innovative technology in the irrigation scheme, land, and water management in the Burdekin Basin, which would reduce sediment and nutrient loads flowing to the coastal ecosystems and the Great Barrier Reef. The Upper Burdekin is also significantly less susceptible to groundwater level increases and consequent secondary salinity, which is currently an issue in the Lower Burdekin area.

Assessment of market demand supports the findings that the development of the Upper Burdekin for agricultural purposes presents the opportunity to transition to higher value agricultural and horticultural production whilst maintaining grazing activities in the northern Burdekin region.

Based on recent studies there is sufficient demand for the full 60,000 hectares of irrigated farming and the full use of any available water allocations. This will double the value of crop production regionally, resulting in the Burdekin Basin becoming the largest regional contributor to Queensland’s non-livestock agricultural output, and account for an additional 3% of the total national annual crop production

Development of the Upper Burdekin has wider regional benefits to the supply chain and supporting service industries. Additionally, high value agricultural and horticultural development will address the current decline in population in regional areas by supporting future manufacturing and secondary processing, which will subsequently promote more jobs and skills enhancement in the region.

Indigenous

Engagement and consultation with Traditional Owners is an important component of any development. Allocation of water to areas for growth and development in agriculture or industry including the Upper Burdekin must not only address agricultural and economic development related service needs but also the needs of the Traditional Owners.

Opportunities can arise for First Nations people of the region, including the Upper Burdekin region, in the water planning and allocation.

• Business opportunities – land and water allocations provisioning Indigenous business opportunities (water trades, farming opportunities, eco-tourism etc.)

• Education and upskilling – upskilling opportunities can be built into Heritage Agreements or gifted. These may include land care, ranger work, environmental monitoring, archaeology and heritage survey, construction etc.

• Jobs and employment – procurement policies to make sure Indigenous businesses can compete and win portions of work associated with developments in the region. Traditional Owners identified the importance that these are not tokenistic opportunities and provide quality opportunities across the operational matrix.

10. Key Issues to be Resolved to Grow Opportunities

The revised Burdekin Water Plan must consider the need for a holistic Burdekin strategy to ensure long-term water security. To develop the most effective and efficient water strategy, government must fully understand economic demand, population growth, environmental and social needs of the entire river system. The aim must be to use every single drop of water within the regulated environmental flows wisely Currently, the majority of water allocations are in the Lower Burdekin. To unleash unused or unallocated buckets of water allocations that have sat unused and underutilised for decades, further works in the Great Barrier Reef, the Lower and Upper Burdekin areas, will be required to understand what a long-term water development strategy needs to look like.

To develop further long-term water storage in the upper system, Badu Advisory was engaged by Townsville Enterprise in 2022 to undertake a high-level review of Lower Burdekin benefits and impacts, with a focus on the groundwater system that might arise from future bulk water infrastructure development in the overall Burdekin catchment. For the purposes of this review, the Lower Burdekin is taken to be the underirrigated agriculture area downstream of the Burdekin Falls Dam.

The following seven key considerations were identified by Badu Advisory and examined during this high-level review:

1. Implications for aquifer recharge including saltwater intrusion

2. Implications for water security and availability including for existing urban, industrial and irrigation water users as well as for future opportunities such as water for hydrogen

3. Implications for environmental flows

4. Implications for riverine and Reef water quality including turbidity and sedimentation.

5. Understanding the cumulative impacts of existing and proposed upstream water resource infrastructure and development

6. Shortcomings of the current siloed institutional, water allocation/management and regulatory arrangements.

7. Implications of climate change and variability including frequency/intensity of future riverine flow events (floods and droughts).

Table 1 is a summary of further studies and/or further investment, arising from this review, that should be pursued as part of the further assessment of future upstream bulk water infrastructure developments. These are intended to complement (rather than duplicate) the range of programs already underway by research organisations in the Lower Burdekin.

The below details and opportunities should be a key consideration for understanding the overall Burdekin Basin Water Plan

Key opportunities

1. Line Sunwater’s open-earth distribution channels in the Burdekin Haughton Water Supply Scheme as a pathway for investing in infrastructure that would directly and immediately reduce the volume of water seeping into the groundwater system.

2. Commit to a research program to enable the collaborative and coordinated management of coastal wetland ecosystems and their interconnections with the Great Barrier Reef and Lower Burdekin Delta groundwater systems

3. Engage with stakeholders about the improved hydrologic performance that would be offered by extending the existing Burdekin Haughton Water Supply Scheme to incorporate a new upstream storage

4.1.1

4.1.2

4.2

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4. Investigate and assess, in consultation with the community, the pros and cons associated with the potential changes to the downstream flow regime particularly with respect to the impacts and benefits of reducing peak flood flows in the Lower Burdekin. Other examples of environmental flow strategies that warrant future dialogue with stakeholders might include:

• Extending low to medium environmental flow objectives beyond the trunk stream to better service important ecological assets located away from the main river and dependent on smaller off-river tributaries from the delta for their seasonal connection to coastal wetlands

• Including provisions that encourage greater use of groundwater at certain times when preservation of riverine and tributary flows is considered environmentally important.

5. Assess the potential benefits and costs of modifying the outlet works at Burdekin Falls Dam to enable active management and bypassing of occasional pulse-style environmental releases that are aligned with improving management of downstream sediment loads, aquifer recharge and sand dam performance, efficiency, and lifespan

6. Consider retrofitting a multi-level outlet work structure at Burdekin Falls Dam to improve management of the water quality of dam releases for downstream environmental and water supply purposes.

7. Examine, in a whole of region context, the cumulative impacts of existing plus various combinations of new water infrastructure developments on riverine and coastal geomorphological considerations. This should include using the hydrologic information available from the modelling studies recently completed as part of Detailed Business Cases.

8. Establish a renewed funding basis, focus, and drive for all stakeholders –organisations and individuals – to reengage in the kind of joint visioning, collaborative thinking and learning, and community-driven action that was previously espoused by Williams et al over a decade ago. This could also be supported by the engagement processes that will support the Department of Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water for development and implementation of an updated water plan for the Burdekin.

9. Quantify the potential benefits that additional storage capacity might offer as a means of managing potential variations in climate that are more extreme than observed in the historical record (for example, less frequent but more intense flood events interspersed with drought events of extended duration)

10. Conceptualise the design and desired performance of existing and new bulk water infrastructure developments in terms of regional water grids that draw together multiple sources of water (including catchment surface water storages, groundwater, and manufactured water etc.) and inter- connectors (using bulk water pipelines) to provide overall reliability of a water supply portfolio that matches users’ needs.

The Report can be found in Appendix A.

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

To successfully realise the forecasted benefits and opportunities for the Upper Burdekin and have an efficient and effective water allocation system that encourages growth and development in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner, several critical issues will need to be resolved as part of the revised water plan.

Identifying additional water allocations for the Upper Burdekin needs to be considered as part of the revised water plan, desirably based on an integrated operations model across the Burdekin River system. Currently, access to water allocations for this region is limited, difficult and will inhibit or deter industry investment in the region It must be considered that many investors rely on 365 days water security which traditionally comes from larger water storage solutions.

Identified pathways for addressing this challenge include various combinations of the following water allocation strategies, with multiple options providing heightened opportunity for the sourcing of the necessary water entitlements to be advanced:

• Creating a new additional unallocated strategic water reserve for new water storage projects

• A mechanism or framework on how reassigning some (or all) of the existing unallocated water reserves to new projects can be achieved during the regulatory life of the new Burdekin Basin Water Plan

• Acquiring and moving/reconfiguring/converting existing (unused) water entitlements that are located within the Burdekin Haughton Water Supply Scheme, and reallocating these to new projects.

• Demand for water and source of funding.

Further assessments will also be required to gain a full understanding of the holistic Burdekin River system and how implementation can occur in a coordinated and integrated manner.

Claudia Brumme-Smith Chief Executive Officer Townsville Enterprise Limited