19/09/2026
As Ann Leahy was unable to respond to questions in Parliament on the proposed water use ๐ฆ of the proposed near Dalby, despite it being in her electorate and Ms Leahy being the Water Minister, here is some information, as provided as a comment to Nikki Boyd MP 's post ....
According to the DA documents, during construction, each stage will require over 500,000 litres of water per day (there are 4 proposed stages/buildings).
270,000 litres of that is potable water requirements (mainly for the workers camp) which is to be trucked in by tankers. But where is this water coming from and how many tankers per day can the roads around Dalby expect to accommodate?
The remainder is non-potable which they say will come from a variety of possible sources (not yet worked out) including rainwater harvesting, existing dam on site and/or treated coal seam gas water. They say "no bore water extraction from local groundwater aquifers is proposed" but where do they think CSG water comes from? It's taken from regional aquifers in order to produce the gas, and is subsequently causing hundreds of farmer and regional community water bores to be impaired.
Each data centre building will require 27ML of water to fill the closed loop cooling system. Apparently that is a one-off initial requirement.
Other than the large water requirements during the construction phase, the ongoing use appears to be less extensive compared with other data centres. However, we have to remember this is being built in Kogan, where temperatures above 35C from Oct to April are common, and those reaching 40C over the peak of the summer months aren't uncommon. Is this really all the water it will require to keep cool during peak summer months? ๐ค
What's more, the town of Dalby is already highly constrained in its water supplies. It relies on the Condamine Alluvium for 90% of its town water supplies. These bores are dropping off in capacity and the salt levels are creeping higher. They have already drilled a new bore in the Hutton Sandstone (GAB) and are in the process of drilling 4 new Condamine Alluvium bores to satisfy the existing population load. What happens when you add over 1000 extra households to the mix (they're saying there will be 1400 ongoing direct jobs)?! Can a town like Dalby and its constrained water sources really support such an increase in population? ๐ค
This development is being rushed without adequate community consultation, without sufficient long-term planning and without adequate legislated guardrails in place.
Until legislated water and energy guardrails, and community benefit regulations are put in place, there needs to be a moratorium enacted, so that we're not all wondering in 20 years time how we got ourselves into such a mess, as has been the case with the rapid rollout of the east coast LNG industry which involved no gas reservation policy and a complete lack of foresight into the long-term damage to inland Qld's Great Artesian Basin aquifers.
Unfortunately, the short-term lens of government means the sugar-rush and FOMO mistakes of history will undoubtedly be repeated.
