Regional Review
Issue No. 5 - April/June 2002
Above and Beyond the Triangle
by Ian Henderson
The potential of one of South Australia’s fastest growing regional areas is being threatened by inadequate water and power supplies.
It’s a familiar situation for several of the State’s regional areas, but it is more keenly felt on the Eyre Peninsula than anywhere else.
The Eyre Peninsula is a fascinating mix of old and new industries, rural cities and tiny country towns, ‘wide brown land’ and ‘jewel sea’. Roughly the size of Tasmania, the region has an industrious population of 70,000.
Primary industries form the backbone of the local economy.
Mining is based on the industrial city of Whyalla, where the BHP steelworks process ore mined at the nearby Iron Knob and Iron Duke mines. Twenty miles away lies Port Bonython, where Santos Ltd processes LPG and crude oil from the Moomba fields to the north of the peninsula. The Eyre Peninsula is also home to Australia’s largest gypsum mine, as well as “world-class” deposits of granite, marble and jade.
The region has traditionally relied also on grain production despite having relatively low rainfall. Eyre Peninsula growers delivered almost 2.7 million tonnes (about $540 million) of wheat, barley, pulses and oilseeds into local silos during the recent harvest, the region’s second successive record crop. A sizeable rail network—unconnected to the rest of the country—carries vast amounts of grain to terminals at Thevenard in the west and Port Lincoln in the south, the only South Australian port deep enough to accommodate large bulk carriers.
“Grain growers are cashed up and showing cautious optimism,” Buckleboo grower Ken Schaefer says. “Many have moved almost exclusively to grain production at the expense of livestock—local machinery suppliers have never had a better time of it.”
Aquaculture, however, has become the region’s economic flagship after experiencing ph...
