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A small town at the centre of a major new clean energy project has been given millions of dollars in what the Queensland government has described as a "gesture of goodwill" but critics have called "bribery".
The Borumba Pumped Hydro Project is planned for just outside Imbil in south-west Queensland's Gympie region.
The $14.2 billion proposal is still in its infancy, with site investigations beginning late last year.
"As a gesture of goodwill … I can announce four early projects," Energy Minister Mick de Brenni said on Wednesday while unveiling a $5 million funding package for the town.
"We want to make sure that this community is able to benefit now and well into the future long after the construction activity has passed."
The projects include a mountain bike park, township upgrades, and a GP clinic after Imbil's only medical centre shut last year.
Queensland Hydro, the state-owned entity coordinating the project, is based at the site of the former GP clinic — which is where the new clinic will be re-established.
Julie Sturgess, CEO of primary health network Country to Coast Qld, said the partnership with Queensland Hydro was "incredibly positive".
"Increasingly it's difficult to sustain some of these [GP] services, so the investment of industry to be able to support that is pivotal in allowing us to do that," Ms Sturgess said.
Funding 'emotional blackmail'
The existing Borumba Dam will be expanded for the project, with a new dam wall constructed downstream.
A second reservoir will be built at a higher altitude, along with an underground powerhouse that will link the two reservoirs.
It is proposed to deliver two gigawatts of 24-hour storage, enough renewable power for around two million homes.
When announced in September 2022, then-premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the project, combined with a second site at Mackay, would deliver the largest pumped hydro energy storage in the world.
"These are projects of national significance on a scale not seen since the construction of Snowy Hydro — bigger than Snowy Hydro," Ms Palaszczuk said at the time.
But the plan has since attracted criticism from environmental groups, the former CEO of Powerlink, and residents in surrounding areas who will see transmission lines and towers through their properties.
The Say No to the Lines group's Shea Rule described the Imbil announcement as "emotional blackmail".
"It's nothing but bribery,' Ms Rule said.
"Anyone sitting on the fence they're going to be like, 'oh, well, we'll get this'."
She said the project was already causing a great deal of anxiety within the wider Gympie community.
"For people that are in the direct line of the new powerline network the stress and anxiety is next level," Ms Rule said.
She has described the transmission towers as "80-metre-tall steel monstrosities" that will drastically lower property values.
"Who wants these things?" Ms Rule said.
Ripples from the past
Many long-term residents in the Mary Valley are still scarred by the former Peter Beattie government's failed Traveston Crossing Dam proposal.
The dam's planning saw 478 properties resumed, and was eventually quashed by the federal government in 2009 on environmental grounds.
Steve Burgess from the Mary Valley Catchment Coordinating Committee was involved in the Traveston fight.
He said the initial process for Borumba was "chalk and cheese".
"The consultation has been much better and much more professional," Mr Burgess said.
"It doesn't change the basic thing that both of these projects have been announced with a huge amount of political intent behind them."
Unlike the Traveston proposal, no homes will be resumed under the pumped hydro plan.
But Mr Burgess said the area where it is to be built is of environmental significance.
"There's some beautiful habitat which is also habitat for a number of critically threatened species," he said.
"It's also really good habitat for the aquatic species up there — the Mary River turtle, Mary River cod, white-throated snapping turtle, Queensland lungfish."
Mr Burgess said it was "an absolutely huge mining project".
"The amount of excavation and the amount of concrete that needs to be manufactured and made … it's enormous, so it needs the appropriate level of assessment."
Assessments underway
The draft terms of reference for the Environmental Impact Statement have now been released for public comment.
Mr de Brenni said he was "very confident" following the preliminary analysis of the site.
"This project will have an overall enhancement to the biodiversity and conservation values of this region," the minister said.
"We can't decarbonise our energy system without pumped hydro … without this deep storage.
"This will enable Queensland to meet its new emissions reduction target of 75 per cent by 2035 … [and] that will protect literally hundreds of thousands of jobs right across Queensland."
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