High & Dry in Mount Tamborine
Backdated from April 20th 2021 (News Style)
MOUNT Tamborine residents and environmentalists are rallying against the commercial water extraction practices of multinational corporations including Coca-Cola Amital, which has left them high and dry.
Truck loads of water, amounting to over 100 million litres a year, are taken each day as corporations use Mount Tamborine’s water bores for their bottled water products, including Mount Franklin Water.
Mount Tamborine’s water crisis was first brought to mainstream attention in 2019 when Mount Tamborine State School informed parents that their bore was running dry and advised that students should bring extra water to school.
Scenic Rim Greens spokesperson and Mount Tamborine resident, Dr. Sally Williams, says commercial water extraction concerns the community greatly.
“There’s near universal community dissatisfaction with commercial water extraction in Mount Tamborine. 90% of the community disapprove of this sort of extraction.”
Dr. Williams further stated that commercial water extraction had been impacting the community for as long as two decades.
“The issue of water extraction for commercial reasons, namely by organisations such as Coca-Cola Amital, which then comes back as bottled water, has been an issue for over 20 years.”
The Queensland government has currently placed a 12-month ban on new water extraction sites in Mount Tamborine, extended from its original March 2021 deadline. However, this does not impact current water extraction projects.
Dr. Williams argues that this is a step in the right direction for halting commercial extraction of Mount Tamborine’s water.
“It showed that the Queensland state government recognised that they had a role in water management pertaining to commercial extraction because they previously denied it.”
In contrast, Coca-Cola Amital stressed in its internal Sustainability Report that its water extraction practices are “sustainable” and that they are committed to “replenish 100% of the water we use”.
Mount Tamborine is one of Queensland’s bustling tourist destinations. Before COVID-19, it was estimated that the town attracted over 1.3 million tourists with its array of wineries, restaurants, art galleries and nature parks.