'Schoolchildren regularly tour GoMA (renamed Gallery of Modern Aridity) and gasp at first sight of the colour green. Several reportedly faint at the glass cabinet containing a stuffed mango'.

Matt Condon on Brisbane after level 15 water restrictions.

YARRAMAN on the northern Darling Downs will be out of water in less than three months without an emergency pipeline connecting it to the dwindling Wivenhoe Dam.

The only water source for the town of 1000 -- the Ted Pukallus weir -- may fail Yarraman for the first time in 30 years.

"We've got three months' water at the most," Rosalie Shire Council Mayor Noel Stohfeld said. "We're initiating an emergency connection to the Tarong pipeline. We're not just going to sit back and wait for it to rain."

Last year, the weir was full but there has since been virtually no run-off.

"It's a small dam on a big catchment. It should be full and overflowing," Cr Stohfeld said. "If we had one good storm we'd be all right."

Construction begins next week on a $150,000, 3.3km emergency pipeline that will link the town to an existing 90km pipeline, from Wivenhoe to the Tarong power station. But that pipeline may be sucking air later this year because the Tarong pipeline draws from the northern end of the Wivenhoe. If both pipelines run dry, Yarraman would have to rely on carted water.

Yarraman's crisis is a grim future scenario for Brisbane if primary dam levels decline, as predicted, to 5 per cent by the end of 2008 without dam run-off.

Yarraman is one of five towns which have applied for funding under the Urban Drought Water Program. Applications for funding to offset water carting costs also have been lodged by Kumbia, Killarney, Builyan and Willows.

The state will update its list of communities with critical water supply status after the end of the wet season. It comes as the Senate formally gave the go-ahead for an inquiry into the controversial Traveston Crossing Dam, near Gympie.

The inquiry will examine "all reasonable" options to tackle the water crisis.

Liberal Senator Russell Trood said the inquiry was a win for the residents of the Mary River Valley who are fighting the $1.7 billion project.

The Queensland Water Commission last week announced level 5 restrictions would start in the southeast on April 10.

Regional mayors will be consulted on the restrictions on March 9 and the measures will be open to public for discussion the following day.

Source: The Courier Mail