Engeny Water Management has recently completed the Preliminary Business Case for the Hughenden Irrigation Project in North Queensland. The Hughenden Irrigation Project is being driven by HIPCo, a group of local farmers and businessmen, to establish large scale irrigated agricultural production in the Flinders River catchment to stimulate economic growth, provide drought resilience and new regions of food production outside of the traditional areas. Engeny completed options evaluation and finalised the Preliminary Business Case within a 12 month period. Economic and financial analysis was completed by NineSquared and agronomy by PeritusAg.
The Project comprises a 190 GL storage capacity dam on Stewart Creek supplemented with inflows from a gravity diversion system on the Flinders River. The Project will be able to supply 70 to 80 GL/year of water to 10,000 ha of irrigable land to the south of the Flinders River which is expected to support the production of high value horticultural crops and also livestock feed crops for the local grazing industry.
The Preliminary Business Case report has been accepted by the Federal Government through the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority (NQWIA). NQWIA has committed funding to HIPCo to take the project to a Detailed Business Case.
