TO KILL DROUGHTS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 17, 16 February 1942, Page 8

TO KILL DROUGHTS

HUGE SCHEME FOR NEW DEVELOPMENT WORKS IN QUEENSLAND

DIVERT FLOOD WATERS

The man who designed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Dr J. J. C. Bradfield, has proposed some huge schemes for developmental works in Queensland. Many a man has looked at the flood waters tearing their way down the slopes of the coastal mountain chain to the Pacific, and has then turned his mind to the vasl arid plains of the hinterland cut off by the mountains from the life-giv-ing burden of the rain clouds. On the eastern side of the ranges rainfall has gone up to 254 inches in a year. Inland, the driest areas get less than five inches. Dr Bradfield says that he can kill inland droughts

for £30,000,000 by carrying the water over the mountain barrier.

Another plan, is for a hydro-elec-tric scheme on the Burdekin River, in North Queensland, which will provide power for the State's main railways and spill it over the border down the inter-State line almost to Sydney, give light and power to hundreds of towns and develop mercury, bauxite and shale oil deposits, all for another £30,000,000.

An immediate postwar plan is a dam on the Queensland-New South Wales border which will impound more water than there is in Sydney Harbour,