During the recent drought, when the waters of Lake Alexandrina receded, rye grass was sown on the dry lake bed in front of Trevor Harden’s home to stop the soil blowing away. Mr Harden would have preferred the barrages to have been opened, and the lake allowed to reconnect with the sea.
When I first visited Lake Alexandrina, at the bottom of the Murray River, it was during the drought and the so-called Murray mouth had to be kept open by a sand dredge. During my recent visit the lake was full of water, and still more water flowed in at Wellington, and out at Goolwa, out to the Southern Ocean.
According to lake-front resident, Trevor Harden, more than 50,000 megalitres per day has been flowing past his home and down the Goolwa channel to the Southern Ocean since November 2010 – more than 70,000 was flowing past on the day I visited, on March 14, 2011.
The view from Mr Harden’s veranda on that day was of black swans and pelicans sailing past on a broad expanse of brown water. But the screen saver on his computer showed wheel tracks from a quad bike across the dry lake bed. The photograph had been taken at the height of the drought in April 2009.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.