Murray River

Let’s be honest: a dry river is not necessarily an environmental catastrophe.

Two weeks ago Australians were warned that a leaked government report claims there is only six months to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

In response, the Federal Opposition leader, Brendan Nelson, called on the Prime Minister, Kelvin Rudd, to make a joint tour of the River Murray’s lower lakes region.

Mr Nelson said he thought it was “very important that the leaders of this nation have a first-hand look at the environmental, economic and human catastrophe which is unfolding in the Lower Murray lakes.”

The leaked report focused on the lower lakes, and as I have previously written (Acid Sulfate Blame Floating Upstream, The Land, May 15, pg 30), a solution to many of the environmental problems at the Murray’s mouth is to simply open the barrages and let the area flood with saltwater.

The barrages were built from the 1920s to keep the Southern Ocean out and to raise the lake level, including for boating.

These same barrages also facilitated the development of irrigated farming in this area, but they are unnatural.

If the barrages were now opened, irrigators dependent on freshwater from the lower lakes would need to be compensated.

But the alternative, continuing to send large quantities of water from the drought-drained reserves in the Hume and Dartmouth dams during this protracted big dry, is less viable.

Some argue that if a permanent weir was constructed just upstream of the lakes at Wellington and the barrages used under “an adaptive management regime”, there could be water savings in the order of 750,000 megalitres a year.

Opening the barrages would take some pressure off the system, because less water would need to be allocated to South Australia, but the river could still run dry.

Indeed, it doesn’t matter how many leaked government reports call for more water for environmental flows, if there’s ongoing drought and the upstream dams runs dry, there will be simply no water for the river.

It would be an economic and human catastrophe for the many towns now dependent on the river for their water supply, but it would not necessarily be a catastrophe for the environment.

The River Murray in its natural state could be reduced to a chain of saline ponds.
Indeed, the idea that a river should be always brimming with freshwater is a very European concept – in reality, alien to a land of drought and flooding rains.

So, let’s be honest, many South Australians want to keep the barrages shut to the Southern Ocean and many Victorians and New South Welshmen want to keep the river full of water – not to save the environment, but to avoid what Mr Nelson has described as a potential economic and social catastrophe.

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This is an edited version of my column published in The Land on Thursday June 26 entitled ‘Barrages Block Sense’.
You can read many of my The Land columns here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/articles.php

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.

“Four weeks into a six-week Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) watering at the Narran Lakes system has already resulted in a huge boost to the environmental health of the system’s plants and animals, particularly its birdlife.

“The MDBC bought 11,000 megalitres of water over the Easter weekend to supplement the natural watering occurring at the internationally important Ramsar wetland site in north central New South Wales.

“MDBC chief executive, Dr Wendy Craik, said today that expert ground surveys were showing that about 75pc of the 30,000 pairs of straw-necked ibis attracted to the lakes since January were now expected to successfully produce healthy, full-fledged offspring…

Read more at Farm Online: http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/article/85135.aspx

Some years ago an irrigator in the Macquarie Valley explained to me that they had been giving back water for years as part of negotiated and then renegotiated water sharing plans.

He then asked me how much more water I thought the environmentalists would be asking for, before they had enough water for the environment.

My considered reply was that as long as irrigators took any water from the river they would be a target. I believed it did not matter how much or how little water he took, it was that he took any water at all that was the issue.

When a level of two percent water extraction from the Fitzroy River in Western Australia was proposed a few years ago, this was considered too high.

In Far North Queensland it is accepted that no water at all be harvested from rivers because they are known as ‘wild rivers’.

In southern Australia water must be given back to the environment because levels of extraction are generally considered too high whether this represents five or 35 percent of stream flow.

In short, there is little or no community support for irrigation.

Yet, combined with the use of the best crop varieties and appropriate fertiliser and pesticide inputs, irrigated agriculture is an efficient, reliable and sustainable way to produce food.

Globally world food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and the prices of most food crops are at a record high.

Meanwhile, the Australian government is hell-bent on entering the water market and purchasing water from irrigators on the Murray River or its tributaries to send to South Australia.

New federal Water Minister, Penny Wong, has been claiming the water is for the river, but water levels in the main channel of the Murray River have remained high despite the drought all the way to the lower lakes.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) claims more water is needed for the Murray’s mouth, but if it was really concerned about the river’s mouth it would insist the barrages be opened to let the water run from the lower lakes out to sea.

In short, the Australian taxpayer is about to spend billions of dollars to buy back water, mostly because many environment groups don’t like irrigated agriculture.

This article was first published by The Land.

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“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” Tolstoy via Jim.