have been campaigning against the development<\/a>, citing concerns the water extraction would impact agricultural production.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/67b981e335a03409edbebb3abc25eab0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Farmers applauded the council’s decision from the public gallery. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
About 15 farmers travelled into town from their rural properties to attend the council meeting, including Peter Keogh, whose property neighbours Cherrabah Resort.<\/p>\n
“We’re very happy with the decision,” Mr Keogh said.<\/p>\n
“This has been a big concern to a lot of people.”<\/p>\n
However, Mr Keogh said the “the fight’s not over” because the existing water licence was still in place.<\/p>\n
“With [the council’s] decision being all against, I think it adds weight to the government to really look at this licence and hopefully call it in,” Mr Keogh said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/f84dbe8e8c38bb8182a61650c9baa4d6.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The council says it has requested the state government review the water licence associated with the proposal. (ABC Southern Qld: Grace Nakamura)<\/p>\n
Elbow Valley resident Craig Dorrough, who lives near the property, said the group would campaign to change the water extraction licence.<\/p>\n
“What we have to keep on doing is to get the government to either revoke this licence or put it so it can’t leave the shire \u2026 or only be used for agricultural purposes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’d hope that they’d see logic and see sense in this matter.”<\/p>\n
Calls for licence to be reviewed![\"cherrabah](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772005151_511_7317ef81a2dc3dad4a875da60ad89c54.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A water extraction and bottling plant is proposed for Cherrabah Resort on Queensland’s Southern Downs. (ABC Southern Qld: Dan McCray)<\/p>\n
The council called on Water Minister Ann Leahy to review the company’s commercial water licence.<\/p>\n
The licence was issued to the company in the late 2000s initially to extract 25 million litres, which was later increased to 96ML by the then-Labor government.<\/p>\n
LNP Member for Southern Downs James Lister said he would take the concerns to the government, but criticised the previous government for granting the licence.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always been concerned about bottling water in an area where there’s not enough of it \u2026 I think the council has made the right decision here,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I maintain that I’m not the government \u2014 I’m the local member for Southern Downs and so it’s my job, and I take it seriously, to reflect the concerns brought to me.<\/p>\n
“I meet with Ann Leahy and her staff a lot.”<\/p>\n
Cr Hamilton said there needed to be a more technical review of the impact of extracting 96ML from the aquifer.<\/p>\n
“We want to be sure that that extraction isn’t going to dry the landscape in a way that gives us higher bushfire impacts going forth,” she said.<\/p>\n
Cr Hamilton said water security was an “unfinished project” on Queensland’s Southern Downs.<\/p>\n
“Water sources like this cannot be given away in a region where we struggle with drought, both in farms and in our towns,” she said.<\/p>\n
Joyful View Garden Real Estate Development Resort has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queensland regional council has rejected a developer’s plans to build a water bottling, storage and export facility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,252746,251925,75,252747,251922,128,251928],"class_list":["post-502672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cherrabah","tag-elbow-valley","tag-environment","tag-melissa-hamilton","tag-peter-keogh","tag-science","tag-southern-downs-regional-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/583306ea5dce34f830bc06f5fd0709d0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n