Bore-capping project reaches half-way point

A 20-year project to protect dwindling supplies of water in the Great Artesian Basin has reached its half-way point, with the capping of another bore in Queensland's northern interior.

The Natural Resources Minister, Henry Palaszczuk, travelled to the remote Artesian Downs cattle station near Richmond to watch another bore being capped.

The project hopes to stop artesian water from flowing freely to the surface and being wasted.

The bore capped at Artesian Downs was drilled in 1915.

Mr Palaszczuk says until it was filled with concrete, about 25 litres of water were being lost every second.

"So over the last 90 years you can imagine how much water has been wasted," he said.

He says the project will save the equivalent of 130,000 Olympic swimming pools of water each year.

Since 1989, 500 artesian bores have been filled.

Project manager Andrew Brier says water levels and pressure in the basin have been dropping for decades but their efforts are having a positive effect.

"We've been plugging bores now since 1989 so we've been going for a while now but it's got demonstrable results," he said.

"We can actually see we're making a difference, we've got pressure recovery, we've got bores increasing in flow."