By Phil Jarratt
Lake Macdonald, Cooroy
Originally known as the Six Mile Creek Dam, and one of the more controversial public works projects of the 1950s and ‘60s, beautiful Lake Macdonald is fittingly named after one of the more polarising Noosa Shire chairmen, the mild-mannered Cooroy vet Ian Macdonald.
When Macdonald was elected to council in 1961, the argument over whether the enormous costs required to ensure the Shire’s water supply had been brewing for a decade, with the inland divisions for it and the coastal against. But in April 1960 a referendum decided two to one in favour of building the 25-foot dam, just a few miles from Macdonald’s Cooroy home and veterinary practice. The new councillor became a passionate supporter of the project, despite cost blowouts, and as chairman of the shire, he stood alongside Queensland Premier Frank Nicklin when the dam was opened in October, 1965.
Macdonald’s time as chair, from 1964 until his death in 1980, was marked by an increasing divide in the Noosa community between the development and conservation lobbies. Macdonald himself, a firm believer in develop or perish, was also a nature lover and a community-minded person, and under his watch, roads, water and sewerage were vastly improved, but he was also regarded by many as a puppet of the developers, particularly T.M. Burke, who wanted to build a dress circle road around the Noosa headland, connecting their Sunshine Beach estate with Laguna Bay.
At this stage, such a road was still possible because the Noosa National Park didn’t extend to the coast, and T.M. Burke had landholdings at Alexandria Bay, so Macdonald’s strong support for the coastal esplanade brought him into direct conflict with another doctor of medicine, the feisty founder of the Noosa Parks Association, Arthur Harrold. As it turned out, Arthur was a better politician than the chairman, and his lobbying of state ministers in Brisbane resulted in the park being extended and the road idea abandoned. But if that battle was won and lost, the war was far from over. Throughout the 1970s, Chairman Macdonald strongly supported the draining of Hays Island to create Noosa Sound, extension of the spit to protect the new development, high rise buildings along the Hastings Street beachfront, and a T.M. Burke canal proposal called Noosa Waters. To some, this made him the hero of Noosa’s rapid economic development, to others he was the villain without a vision for Noosa’s long-term future.
Outside council, Macdonald was a busy vet respected by the local community since establishing his practice in 1954 for his love of all animals, and by his peers for his ground-breaking work in diagnosing bovine leucosis in dairy cattle and his research into the so-called “big head” condition in horses. Married (to Veda) with four daughters, the World War II RAAF veteran was also a devoted family man.
From the mid-1970s, Macdonald was also a strong proponent of moving the Shire chambers from Pomona to Tewantin and building a civic centre overlooking the river. The new building on Pelican Street was opened in late 1980, just a few months after Ian Macdonald succumbed to cancer at 55, while still in office.
Renamed Lake Macdonald in the chairman’s memory, the old Six Mile Dam has become a Noosa hinterland treasure, with good fishing and pleasant walkways around its perimeter. In the 1990s, it also became home to the Noosa Botanical Gardens, which evolved from the unofficial Cooroy town dump under the guidance and care of a community group led by the late Ida Duncan.
Today the Lake Macdonald area forms part of the Noosa Trails Network.
