A 100,000 megalitre water allocation needed for Richmond irrigation plan

Under the scheme, which the council would develop and own, 8567ha of land on a greenfields site between Nonda and Nelia would be watered from a diversion channel off the Flinders River using gravity, to an off-river 250,000ML multi-cell storage facility.

The whole project, including roads, new housing and office space in Richmond, is estimated to cost $230m.

According to the council, spin-offs could include a 25,000 head feedlot, a cotton gin, a contract kill meatworks, an inland port, and a biogas facility, to start with.

Councillors last December spoke with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Michael McCormack in Canberra with the aim of securing funds from the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund.

A $1.35m grant from Queensland's Department of State Development, plus $150,000 of shire revenue, has enabled a preliminary business case, plus a detailed design and a feasibility study to take place already.

Richmond mayor John Wharton said that if the water allocation wasn't granted, it would prove that the state government wasn't interested in seeing this sort of development in the north west.

"If we don't do this, it won't bring the economy of scale you need on the Flinders," he said. "A lot of people have bought water as an asset but they're not using it. This is the year for the government to show it's fair dinkum."

He cited a quote from Business Queensland outlining water release principles for the Gulf's Gilbert, Norman, Leichhardt and Nicholson Rivers, which noted that water was not being made available from the Flinders River "to allow time for proponents to develop and submit large-scale infrastructure proposals".

It goes on to say that proposals will be evaluated to consider whether to release unallocated water for large-scale projects in the Flinders catchment in early 2021.

"That essentially is people like us, people like HIPCo, who are working on these projects," Richmond CEO Peter Bennett said.

Showing how hopeful they were of approval, the council is now in a pre-construction stage in which construction drawings are being done and environmental approvals being worked through.

Mr Bennett said they hoped to have all approvals finalised this year so they could be out in the field in 2022.

The shire was originally championing a water storage project on O'Connell Creek but Cr Wharton said that was "dead in the water" after the plans had been shown to John Grabbe, the former Water Resources Commission officer who designed the largest privately owned irrigation layout in Australia at Cubbie Station.

"He found a better spot - we were dealing with 23 landholders but this has only two, and the deepest water storage in Queensland."

The project is sited on the boundaries of the Richmond and McKinlay shires, where it can collect extra water from the Stawell and Dutton Rivers.

The channels are about 100m wide and at full flow will take about 30,000ML a day

The transfer channel is 14.3km long, to deal with elevation, which does away with the need to pump water.

The ring tanks it feeds into would be between 8.3m and 6.6m deep.

Once the water flows through the farm blocks below, at a capacity of 2000ML a day, any that doesn't absorb goes into settling ponds to be pumped back up into the storage, in a closed system.

The council estimates the project would create well over 600 jobs in the construction phases of the agricultural project and supporting infrastructure works, and 55 permanent full-time jobs.

Unlike the HIPCo project at Hughenden, which features high-value crops in its future, this one has done all its assessment modelling on cotton and mung beans.

The council is conscious that cotton here, plus at Julia Creek and at Etheridge would make a cotton gin a more viable proposition, rather than transporting it to Emerald as at present, and has put its hand up to facilitate the construction of one in the town.

That would trigger a chain of viability, for a feedlot using cottonseed and other locally-grown grains, then an abattoir, given that there would be a reliable source of cattle using an ongoing source of feed.

The council isn't as enthusiastic about facilitating the feedlot aspect - "an abattoir is nice but if it's not here well, so be it," Mr Bennett said.

The project is estimated to generate a profit of between $20m and $60m annually. If it did, the council can see a future with discretionary funds.

House construction, a water bottling facility, a craft brewery, even a bank for western Queensland that would lend to potential home owners, are in the filing cabinet waiting for that day.

Mr Bennett said its feasibility study showed that out of 50 years, farming could occur in 46 of those, thanks to stored water still being available in the event of a failed wet season.

"Corbet Tritton's been farming here for 20 years and has never missed a season, so it's a very reliable river," he said.

"We've been in 10 years of drought now - every year that river has run enough that you could fill a storage, not a problem.

"It's not just us that's going to benefit - because it's halfway to Julia Creek, I daresay the McKinlay shire will also have a lot of workers that will maybe work on the farm, or have flow-ons.

"You will have people like Findley Farms that are going to employ a lot of people, but in between that you're going to have so much dryland farming."

Estimates are that if the council can secure 50/50 grant funding, the project will be paid off in under 10 years.

What the council is seeking:

Queensland government

Federal government

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