Yarragadee is bigger State priority than Ningaloo

Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia

STOPPING the "plundering for Perth" of the Yarragadee aquifer should be a higher priority for Premier Geoff Gallop than the "saving" of Ningaloo.

Premier Gallop is obviously still pushing ahead with plans to take 45 gigalitres of water a year from the Yarragadee aquifer near Nannup, despite mounting evidence and public opinion that he should leave it alone.

Separate CSIRO surveys of South West and Perth communities earlier this year both recorded opposition as high as 80 per cent to the Yarragadee proposal and a recent ultural values survey also gave the proposal a thumbs down.

We believe the Yarragadee is already a bigger issue for this Government than the Maud’s Landing project at Ningaloo Reef because it threatens WA’s most valuable intensive irrigation industries.

Commercial water allocations and licences are already being adversely affected because of the $8 million study at Yarragadee and there is growing investment uncertainty among landowners over new statutory controls to be imposed over their land.

The Water Corporation has told us that thinning the catchments of their existing dams would provide an extra 40 gigalitres of water each year for Perth.

This is confirmed by the fact that whereas winter rainfall is now close to the winter average, the current storage of 197 gigalitres is well below where it should be.