Dam costs could soar to $1b
The cost of building the controversial Tillegra dam could climb to $1 billion because the site has complex geological issues that have been ”ignored”, the State Government has been warned. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Louise Hall, January 14, 2010 hidden data is revealed that could sink the dam and the NSW Labor Government if they ignore public outrage…
Lawyers from the NSW Environmental Defenders Office have written to the director-general of the Department of Planning, Sam Haddad, with geotechnical data that indicates the dam will be ”more risky and costly to build” than its $477 million budget.
Felicity Millner, a solicitor at the public interest legal centre, said the environmental assessment report prepared by the Hunter Water Corporation as part of its application for planning approval of the dam omitted vital data on complex geological features that could require substantial additional civil engineering work.
The data, uncovered in a call for papers by the upper house, was analysed by a consultant geotechnical engineer, Graham Holt, on behalf of the No Tillegra Dam lobby group. Mr Holt accused Hunter Water of misleading the public by not disclosing all the information about the geology of the area ”that has a direct bearing on the cost of the project”.
”Hunter Water has had almost three years to get the geology right at Tillegra, yet still has no real understanding of the site, so how can it claim accurate costing?” Mr Holt said.
A spokeswoman for the Water Minister, Phil Costa, yesterday said comprehensive geotechnical investigations had concluded that the area was safe and stable and that significant additional engineering works would not be required. ”Hunter Water’s budget estimates for the dam are robust,” she said.
The report is the latest in a string of damning assessments by various government agencies of the planned 450-billion-litre dam, which was announced a week after a local Labor MP, the former Aboriginal affairs minister Milton Orkopoulos, was charged with child sex offences in 2006.
The dam’s original budget was $250 million. Planning approval is not likely to be granted until at least April.
The Greens MP John Kaye, a qualified engineer, said Hunter Water must amend the assessment and re-exhibit its plans.
The Greens want the dam to be dumped. ”If, during construction, the site geology turns out to be more challenging … then the cost will blow out and household water bills will skyrocket for years to come,” Dr Kaye said.
However a spokesman for Hunter Water said: “The investigations conducted for the environmental assessment report eliminated geological issues which could represent a high budget risk and were supported by the independent peer review panel made up of five internationally respected dam experts.”
Ron Robson, the chairman of Hunter Water, said if the dam was not built, a more costly desalination plant would be needed.
”Desalination will plunge Hunter Water customers into a whirlpool of construction costs,” he wrote last month.