The Strategic Water Planning Project report released in November 2004 sets out GAWB’s strategic options to best meet changing water needs. This project considered all available water sources and ranked them having regard to cost, quality, environmental and social impacts and reliability and identified an allocation of 30,000Ml from the Lower Fitzroy and a pipeline connection to the northern end of GAWB’s infrastructure as the preferred option.
 

The principal focus of GAWB’s activities has been to secure an allocation of 30,000Ml pa from the Lower Fitzroy River (approximately 120km’s north of Gladstone).

The Central Queensland Regional Water Supply Strategy (CQRWSS) is expected to identify amounts of ‘unallocated’ water that are reserved for release upon the completion of future storage augmentation upon the Lower Fitzroy.  GAWB has actively participated in the CQRWSS to ensure that its requirements are properly understood within the broader context within which this strategy is being developed.

GAWB’s ability to use the planned allocation as a contingent water source that can be employed to either mitigate drought or meet additional demand is dependent upon it being accessible within a certain timeframe. To achieve this objective, GAWB has undertaken significant scoping and preliminary work  in relation to the construction of a pipeline from the northern end of GAWB’s raw water distribution system to the Lower Fitzroy.