jennifer

There is a blog at www.fairwateruse.com.au with an article entitled ‘Dr Jennifer Marohasy: what is her precise agenda?’ suggesting my recent columns in The Land on the River Murray, in particular the situation in South Australia, are agenda driven. The fair-water blog doesn’t explain what my agenda is, and doesn’t allow comments, so I thought I might respond here.

Farmers along the lower reaches of the River Murray are doing it tough. There have been very low inflows for some years now and even with all the water sent down from the Hume and Darmouth Dam the lower lakes are starting to dry up creating significant salinity and acid sulfate soil problems.

The acid sulfate soil problem could be easily overcome by opening the barrages at the very bottom of the lake system and letting in some sea water.

But as the article at the fair-water blog explains the South Australian want to keep their system fresh:

“Blanchetown, some 270 kilometres from the Murray mouth, is currently around 500mm below sea level. If the Goolwa barrages were opened as she suggests, water would certainly flow, but in the opposite direction to that expected by Dr Marohasy, turning the entire length of Murray from Blanchetown to the mouth into an inlet of the Southern Ocean.

Fair Water Use (Australia) doubts whether many Australians would view this as a “good news” story.

We are not sure how Dr Marohasy is able to engage in finger-pointing whilst her head is so deeply embedded in the sand (or should that be acidic mud). The plight of the Murray-Darling is a result of over-exploitation of the entire basin; the solution must therefore involve bold decisions being taken which will have long-term consequences for all users of the river system, from the cotton plantations in the north to the dairy farms and wineries of the south.”

I actually think it would be a good news story in metropolitan Australia if the barrages were opened and salt water flooded in all the way to Blanchetown and a bit beyond. It would be good new for the environment which hasn’t experienced seawater in that stretch of the river for perhaps 120 years.

The South Australians like to pretend that the lower lakes were always fresh, but they weren’t. The freshwater allocations enabling farming in the region could never be guaranteed.

Right now through the National Water Initiative there is a focus on buying back water allocations from the central Murray Valley. But the focus should perhaps be on the lower Murray.

The lower Murray has less fertile soils, and is part of a much less sustainable system – a system which under natural conditions would be periodically estaurine and unsuitable for conventional farming.

But the South Australians often have politics on their side, most recently in the form of federal environment Water and Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong.