SOLUTIONS will be sought to southeast Queensland's water crisis in a wide-ranging Senate inquiry starting this month.

The inquiry will consider "all reasonable" options to tackle the region's water shortage, with a special focus on the controversial Traveston Dam, near Gympie.

Alternative sites to the 180,000-megalitre dam will be examined, along with the project's $1.7 billion price tag and wellpublicised environmental and social impacts.

Nationals' Senate Leader Ron Boswell, pictured -- supported by Queensland Coalition senators Barnaby Joyce and Russell Trood -- yesterday won backing for the inquiry from the Senate party room.

"Now the people of the Mary River will get to have their say, a say denied to them by the Beattie Government," Senator Boswell said.

While the inquiry could not stop the dam, Senator Boswell said it would be the "first and best opportunity" for affected communities to have the issue thoroughly investigated.

Minister for Infrastructure Anna Bligh said the State Government had nothing to fear from the inquiry.

"We would not be proceeding with the Traveston Crossing Dam if we did not think that it would stack up," she said.

However, Ms Bligh said she did not want the Commonwealth to use the inquiry as an excuse to delay a decision under environmental laws.

"The people of southeast Queensland might not be too happy with delays while they're watching existing dam levels fall," she said. "If people want to have a look at it, go ahead, but please don't play politics and mischief in a way that would unnecessarily delay it."

Hearings for the inquiry, starting on February 26, are expected to be held in Canberra, Brisbane and Gympie.

The first stage of the dam, providing 70,000 megalitres of water a year, was to have been built by the end of 2011. But the project has been condemned by farmers and environmentalists.

Senator Joyce said the inquiry would highlight what an "extravagant waste of money" it would be to build the dam.

"The idea that between $1.6 billion and possibly $4 billion (would) be spent on a stinking swamp defies logic," he said.

Australian Conservation Foundation spokeswoman Kate Noble also welcomed the probe while Greens leader Senator Bob Brown said all options for solving the crisis could be looked at under the inquiry's terms of reference.

Source: The Courier Mail