Hydro project a washout for Mackay cane family
Canegrower Joseph Bugeja is the unlikely collateral damage from the Palaszczuk government’s revolutionary scheme to replace coal-fired power plants with renewables.
Joseph Bugeja is the unlikely collateral damage from the Palaszczuk government’s scheme to replace coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources.
The second-generation canegrower has been farming ultra-sweet sugarcane in the rich soil of the Pioneer Valley, west of Mackay, for 30 years, since his father died unexpectedly and he took the reins of the family business.
He wants to eventually pass it on to his 25-year-old son Mark but the government’s plan to build an enormous pumped hydro energy storage dam in the valley means about half of his farmland will be seized, half of his annual income will disappear, and his business will struggle to survive.
Mr Bugeja and his son have done backbreaking work for the past six years on one of the now-doomed parcels of land, shifting rocks and straightening paddocks, readying the property to be passed down. It can now produce three times as much cane as when they started.
This year, Mark proposed to his girlfriend Karlee Shaw on that farm, in a tranquil pocket of the Pioneer Valley, and the pair were going to renovate the ramshackle old farmhouse to move into.
“It’s gutting for all of us; we are f..ked,” Joseph Bugeja told The Australian. “And that’s just the honest truth. I don’t think there’s a minute that goes by without it going through my mind. I cannot for the life of me think how we can recover from it financially.
“I never thought this would happen. I bought freehold land for that one reason … there’s no way I would have done the work I’ve done on those farms if you knew there was a chance (they would be resumed).”
Mr Bugeja and his wife Theresa felt sucker-punched when Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced her long-awaited energy plan last month, revealing the state would all-but phase out coal-fired power to hit an ambitious new renewables target of 80 per cent by 2035.
The centrepiece of the strategy is the proposed Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro project, to be the largest in world when – and if – it is delivered by 2035, generating five gigawatts of power.
About 50 cane, cattle and residential properties will have to be compulsorily resumed and flooded to build the giant dam, which has not yet been subjected to detailed engineering and environmental investigations, or received any government approvals.
Mr Bugeja said any compensation the government offers must take into account more than simply the land value of the two farming properties he’ll lose if the dam goes ahead. It must compensate him for the loss of half his yearly income – 4500 tonnes of cane is produced on that land – and the threat of his entire business being made unviable.
The veteran canegrower does not want to fight the project if it is feasible and could genuinely help combat climate change.
“The environment is a huge part of what we do,” he said. “I’m definitely not against the project if it’s going to work … but don’t destroy us as a family in the process.”
Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said he was entirely confident that fair compensation would be paid.
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