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.