The area earmarked for the Traveston Crossing Dam remains in drought, according to data from the Queensland Government's own Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F), supporting environmentalists' claims the controversial dam would never fill with water.
The State Government announced last month it would delay the Traveston project by several years for remedial work, but remains committed to building the dam on the Mary River, 16 kilometres south of Gympie, to supply the state's booming south-east.
But the DPI&F's latest drought-mapping, released in early December, shows Gympie is one of the driest and most long-suffering regions in Queensland, having first been declared in drought in late October 2000.
Premier Anna Bligh said the drought situation in Gympie would have little impact on the Traveston dam's success.
"Within a local government area, some parts may be in drought while other parts are not," she said.
"Only part of the Traveston Crossing Dam is in the Gympie Regional Council area."
The Premier said, if already built, a dam at Traveston Crossing would be overflowing after better-than-average November rain.
"And the Traveston Crossing bridge downstream of where the dam wall would be built had flooded at least three times this year," she said. "Traveston is a logical site, in fact the best site."
But dam critic Steve Posselt said science based on all climate models showed rainfall would decrease by 10pc and run-off would decrease by three times that.
"Even by the wildest, most optimistic forecasts, run-off from water catchments on the coast will not sustain the Traveston Crossing Dam," Mr Posselt said.
Information that the department released in early December showed 54pc of Queensland was still drought declared.
Despite solid rain last month in many areas, it could take until at least March before drought on affected areas was declared broken.
In November, Toowoomba and Gympie - two of Queensland's driest areas - each had above-average rainfall of more than 100 millimetres.
Mr Posselt said the Government had ignored figures from the CSIRO indicating run-off would decrease by 30pc in the next decade.
Save the Mary River Co-ordinating Group president Glenda Pickersgill, whose property adjoins the Mary River, said the river's stream flow had halved in recent years.
"The Government has not taken into account that the run-off into the Mary River catchment will decrease just as the rainfall will," she said.
"A dam at Traveston Crossing will just not be reliable water source in the event of a drought."
Department rural risk strategies manager Ros Moloney said drought revocations were not done lightly "and not immediately after what is considered a good rainfall".
Local committees, which were made up of local primary producers and department staff, declared or revoked drought status.
"The [committees] monitor seasonal conditions throughout the year and the next meetings will be at the end of the summer rainfall period [in] March and April 2009," she said.
"[The] committees will review the drought status of areas in Queensland based on criteria such as the amount of rain, impact on crops, pastures and livestock, and current weather conditions."
Ms Moloney said that in order for an region's drought declaration to be lifted, it needed to have had enough recent rainfall to tick the following boxes:
1. promote sufficient pasture growth to permit stocking at normal or near normal carrying capacities for the given time of the year;
2. maintain that stocking rate until further rain could reasonably be expected
3. provide sufficient stock water to permit stocking at these levels.
Ms Moloneys said the local drought committees needed to wait for "some time to...elapse" to ensure rain delivered the expected benefits.
Ms Bligh said regions in Queensland had remained drought-declared despite flooding earlier this year.
"There were floods in Charleville earlier this year while that local government area was drought-declared," Ms Bligh said.
"That is the case in the Gympie Regional Council area."
Meanwhile, rainfall over the past week has swelled South-East Queensland's dams, SEQWater's Mike Foster said.
"Combined dam levels (have) increased by 1.179pc over the past seven days, adding five to six weeks of additional supply to the system," he said.
The combined level now stands at 46.91pc.
Meanwhile, dams on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts are full to capacity, with the Lake Baroon Pocket on the Sunshine Coast sitting on 100pc and the southern coasts' Hinze Dam at 98.17pc.
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