Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

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Sea will save the Murray mouth

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THE Murray-Darling Basin is the food bowl of Australia and for years has been considered an ecological disaster.

Later this year the government will release a plan that is supposed to place the Murray-Darling on a sustainable environmental footing, and already $10 billion has been set aside for the plan’s implementation. But if the guide released last year gives any indication of what to expect, then it will do nothing to restore that part of the system most affected by agriculture and most in need of saving: the Lower Lakes and Murray mouth, once the Murray River’s estuary.

The estuary was destroyed when 7.6km of concrete barrages were built across the bottom of the Murray in the 1930s. If nothing is done about this enormous structure there is no guarantee water will get to the Murray’s mouth even if South Australia gets the 4000 gigalitres it is demanding as part of the water reform (4000GL has a market value of $3.2bn to $8bn, depending on where in the Murray-Darling it is purchased).

The barrages have turned the coastal terminal lakes into a permanent and artificially freshwater system, to the detriment of the local environment and the river.

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Convoy of no confidence: what I will say

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I’ve been asked to speak outside Parliament House tomorrow morning, to the ‘Convoy of No Confidence’.   What an honour.  

Following are my speech notes:

THERE is nothing more basic to our physical well-being than food, and Australian farmers are amongst the most efficient and responsible food producers in the world.  Yet they are increasingly demonised and their businesses right now under extraordinary and unnecessary pressure.

The pressure comes, at one level, from apparently arbitrary decisions made by this Commonwealth government, but the previous Coalition government was no better.

Decisions affecting agriculture increasingly reflect the values of an overweight metropolitan elite who have no empathy for, or understanding of, food production or food producers.

It is fashionable to denigrate the very people who keep our supermarket shelves piled high with affordable milk, meat, fruit and vegetable.  And so GetUp! – with members who mostly sit down – dictate ever more impractical but fashionable policies.

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Climate4you Update July 2011

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THE climate update for July 2011 indicates:

“The Northern Hemisphere was characterised by regional variability. Below average temperatures extended across western North America, most of the North Atlantic and Europe, and central Russia. Above average temperatures characterised eastern North America, western Russia and eastern Siberia.

The Southern Hemisphere in general was close to average 1998-2006 conditions, with the exception of parts of the Antarctic. Most other land regions experienced below average temperatures.

Also the near Equator temperatures conditions were close to average 1998-2006 conditions.

The Arctic was characterized by a relatively high variability of surface air temperature deviations from the 1998-2006 average. The European Arctic sector had below average temperatures, and also Alaska and parts of Russia and western Siberia were relatively cold. Most of the Canadian sector and eastern Siberia experienced above average temperatures.

Most of the Antarctic continent experienced high average temperatures, the only major exception being the Antarctic Peninsula…

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Report on Tumut flooding raises more questions than it answers

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LAST December Snowy Hydro dumped water into the already flooded Murray-Darling, but said it had little choice.   A report just released by the NSW Office of Water clears Snowy Hydro but only in so much as it states that Snowy Hydro operated in accordance with its licence conditions.

At issue has always been whether these licence conditions were fair both to Snowy Hydro and those living and working in the Tumut and along the Murrumbidgee.    In particular did Snowy Hydro’s licence conditions, as enforced by the NSW Office of Water, oblige Snowy Hydro to make releases that contributed to the flooding?

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Soil Chemistry, Irrigation and the Disappearance of Murray Cod

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I visited the State Library of South Australia today looking for information on species of fish caught by the Ngarrindjeri in the Lower Lakes at the time of European settlement.

It is evident from the writing of the Reverend George Taplin (who ran the mission on the Narrung Peninsula) that there were Murray Cod in the Lakes and that they were a “forbidden” food for boys.

The local Ngarrindjeri name for them was “Ponde”.

Susan Myers from LakesNeedWater.org has been sending me newspaper articles on the history of the fishery including the following from the Adelaide Advertiser of October 13, 1933, giving reasons for the “Disappearance of Cod”:

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