Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for February 2012

New Canal Development at Bottom of Murray Darling: With Freshwater

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The South Australian government dammed the Murray River’s estuary making lakes Alexandrina and Albert totally dependent on the Murray River.   That was in the 1930s.

More recently the South Australian government has been encouraging the subdivision of land around the shores of Lake Alexandrina.   That’s irresponsible.

Now its approved the subdivision of land on the edge of Lake Albert.  Apparently it’s to be a canal development with the canals full of freshwater.

I guess that’s just another vested interest to join all the others around Lake Alexandrina and Albert lobbying for more of the waters from the upper Murray and Darling.

Yep.  On my drive home today on Greenhill Rd., I saw this huge sign advertising lifestyle lots for sale called “Meningie Waters”.  Here’s a description from the local newspaper…

“Coorong District Mayor Roger Strother said plans for the development had been delayed for the past six years because of drought with some adjustments made to the design to cater for a similar situation.

“Originally the canal system was suppose to be connected to the lake but now it won’t be,” he said.  Mayor Strother said developers had taken into consideration the environmental needs of the lakeside
township and had met all protocols.

“This is being developed on a low salty flat area so won’t affect any wildlife in the lake,” he said.

“They plan on using a lot of groundwater to fill the canals and will have to pump some water in.”

From Charlotte R.

http://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/news/local/news/general/meningie-set-for-population-explosion/2446288.aspx

http://www.meningiewaters.com.au

http://www.facebook.com/MeningieWaters

SA Minister Caica Needs to Read My Report

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FRESH water allocated to the Lower Lakes in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a “waste” and only serves to maintain an “artificial” environment, a new report says…

Reports Lauren Novak and Ken McGregor from the Adelaide Advertiser got that much right.

Their article is available online here http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/water-must-mix-in-the-lower-lakes-says-new-murray-darling-report/story-e6frea83-1226281052851

Comment in their article by State River Murray Minister Paul Caica that the Lower Lakes were not estuarine before construction of the sea dykes is nonsense. Lake Alexandrina is the central basin of a typical southern Australian barrier estuary.

To understand something of the long and short history of the Murray River’s Estuary read my short report

‘Plugging the Murray River’s Mouth: The Interrupted Evolution of a Barrier Estuary’

at https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Plugging-the-Murray-Rivers-Mouth-120212.pdf

Statement by The Heartland Institute on Peter Gleick Confession

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“Earlier this evening, Peter Gleick, a prominent figure in the global warming movement, confessed to stealing electronic documents from The Heartland Institute in an attempt to discredit and embarrass a group that disagrees with his views.

“Gleick’s crime was a serious one. The documents he admits stealing contained personal information about Heartland staff members, donors, and allies, the release of which has violated their privacy and endangered their personal safety.

“An additional document Gleick represented as coming from The Heartland Institute, a forged memo purporting to set out our strategies on global warming, has been extensively cited by newspapers and in news releases and articles posted on Web sites and blogs around the world. It has caused major and permanent damage to the reputations of The Heartland Institute and many of the scientists, policy experts, and organizations we work with.

“A mere apology is not enough to undo the damage.

“In his statement, Gleick claims he committed this crime because he believed The Heartland Institute was preventing a “rational debate” from taking place over global warming. This is unbelievable. Heartland has repeatedly asked for real debate on this important topic. Gleick himself was specifically invited to attend a Heartland event to debate global warming just days before he stole the documents. He turned down the invitation.

“Gleick also claims he did not write the forged memo, but only stole the documents to confirm the content of the memo he received from an anonymous source. This too is unbelievable. Many independent commentators already have concluded the memo was most likely written by Gleick.

The Heartland Institute is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, DC. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

Official Temperature Adjustments to Enhance Overall Global Temperature Rise Since 1880

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OLE Humlum, Professor of Physical Geography, University of Oslo, Norway, puts out a regular monthly newsletter with the latest global climate statistics.

The latest update to January 2012 is here
http://www.climate4you.com/Text/Climate4you_January_2012.pdf

This newsletter includes comment that following adjustments to temperature data held by the National Climate Data Centre (NCDC) early last year, and their subsequent incorporation by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)…

The overall effect of the change introduced in the GISS record is towards lower temperatures in the early part of the record and higher in the latter part. The net result is therefore an enhancement of the overall global temperature rise since 1880. Various graphs are provided to illustrate the effect.

Tiny Budget for Heartland Institute Trying to Counter Global Climate Madness and Scientific Fraud

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Heartland Institute bad – DeSmogBlog says so! ‘Did you know the Heartland Institute employs skeptics?’ ‘And it’s ‘suggested’ they get money from people who agree with them and have interests in carbon dense energy!’

The Heartland Institute is a 28-year-old national nonprofit organization with offices in Chicago, Illinois and Washington, DC. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit http://www.heartland.org

Yesterday afternoon, two advocacy groups posted online several documents they claimed were The Heartland Institute’s 2012 budget, fundraising, and strategy plans. Some of these documents were stolen from Heartland, at least one is a fake, and some may have been altered.

The stolen documents appear to have been written by Heartland’s president for a board meeting that took place on January 17. He was traveling at the time this story broke yesterday afternoon and still has not had the opportunity to read them all to see if they were altered. Therefore, the authenticity of those documents has not been confirmed.

Since then, the documents have been widely reposted on the Internet, again with no effort to confirm their authenticity.

One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.

[Read more…] about Tiny Budget for Heartland Institute Trying to Counter Global Climate Madness and Scientific Fraud

It’s a Barrier Estuary: Duh!

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IN South Australia the Coorong fishermen say that before irrigation, before the weirs, locks, levees and barrages (sea dykes), the Murray River would flog down from September until maybe Christmas, filling the lagoon, then out the mouth. By Christmas, flow had usually slowed and water levels dropped right down. Then when the South Westerly wind picked up the sea would pour in through the mouth and work its way across the lake.

So Lake Alexandrina was fresh in spring and summer, but salty by autumn.

What the old fishermen describe is an estuary: a transition zone. The Murray River had a barrier estuary with a central lagoon, Lake Alexandrina, and a sand barrier, the Younghusband Peninsula. A single, narrow and shallow inlet that often closes over is also a characteristic of barrier estuaries.

There are many barrier estuaries along the southern Australian coastline including Lake Illawarra just south of Wollongong. According to the Lake Illawarra Authority’s management guide, freshwater flows into the lake from the escarpment and salty water from the ocean tides and therefore it is an estuary. There are 70, of these Intermittently Closed and Open Lakes and Lagoons, known by the acronym ICOLL, from Sydney to the Victorian border. A significant issue is management of the risk of flooding when their ‘mouths’ close over. NSW State government policy doesn’t support the artificial opening of ICOLLs.

The South Australian government insists the Murray mouth, which is the inlet to Lake Alexandrina, be kept open. In fact since European settlement there have been many schemes devised to change the Murray’s mouth to make it deeper and wider, including through blasting and dredging and more recently through water reform.

There is this invented narrative that the Murray’s mouth closes over because greedy upstream irrigators have stolen all the water, but the reality is Barrier Estuary’s close over naturally. The long-term solution is to remove the Murray Mouth barrages – the sea dykes – that have interrupted the evolution of this system and so let it develop to a fully mature state. Mature barrier estuaries tend to be fully tidal.

The sea dykes dammed the estuary making it totally dependent on river flows. Stopped the tide. Limiting natural scouring of the sea mouth in spring by the river flow and in autumn by the Southern Ocean. Not surprisingly the hydrology and geomorphology of the Murray’s mouth has changed with sand that used to shoal behind the mouth consolidating into Bird Island that continues to grow and may one day permanently plug the Murray’s mouth.

Indeed Federal Water Minister Tony Burke can buy back all the water from all the irrigators across the entire Murray Darling, but this will have very little real impact on the Murray’s mouth.

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To learn more about barrier estuaries and why Lake Alexandrina was once part of a wave-dominated barrier estuary and which sea dyke should be removed first read my latest technical paper ‘Plugging the Murray River’s Mouth: The Interrupted Evolution of a Barrier Estuary’
at https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/publications/