Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Murray River

The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Ten Years On (Part 2)

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HUNDREDS of millions of dollars have been spent on fishways, resnagging, riparian revegetation, not to mention the billions for water buyback, all recommendations of the Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Basin 2003-2013 [1]. Those who implemented the program, however, claim no progress, in particular that numbers of Murray cod are still in decline [2]. Murray Cod

Interestingly there has been no review of the program of works over the last ten years against the original recommendations in the strategy. Yet such a review could throw light on why, despite all the money spent, Murray cod numbers are still apparently in decline.

[Read more…] about The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Ten Years On (Part 2)

The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Ten Years On (Part 1)

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IT is ten years since the launch of the ‘Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Basin 2003-2013’ [1]. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the program including to re-snag the main channel of the Murray River with microchip embedded logs, building fish-ways and of course returning hundred of gigalitres of water. All of these initiatives should have helped restore populations of native fish, the objective of The Strategy. Native Fish Strategy Cover

In January I asked the Murray Darling Basin Authority, MDBA, if there would be a formal assessment of the effectiveness of The Strategy ten years on. It was suggested that I consult Edition 34 of RipRap, a publication of the Australian River Restoration Centre dedicated to highlighting many of the achievements of The Strategy. [Read more…] about The Native Fish Strategy for the Murray Darling Ten Years On (Part 1)

Expensive Water Still in Dams: Barnaby Joyce

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Media Release

850 billion litres of water purchased through Federal Government buybacks has not been used according to an Australian Audit Office report, Commonwealth Environmental Watering Activities, released today.

This is despite the Federal Government not expecting to acquire even half the Murray Darling Basin water it has deemed necessary for environmental watering purposes.

The Australian Government has bought an asset with borrowed money that the government does not know what to do with. This is a business plan very similar to that of the NBN. We are borrowing money from overseas to put people out of business, to make it harder to repay the money that Labor has borrowed.

850 billion litres is more water than what is in Sydney Harbour and was bought at taxpayer expense for billions of dollars. This unused water has simply served to deplete the economic base of rural communities, cut jobs and food production.

It begs the question of whether the Federal Government will attempt to find ways to utilise this water. Will consideration be given to ensure this water is used for the most environmental and economic benefit and not exacerbate flood events?

Regardless, for the Murray Darling communities deprived of billions of dollars worth of productive capacity, this water is just another example of Labor Government waste.

Barnaby Joyce

Dam Building in Singapore

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MANY South Australians, and the Australian government, and the Murray Darling Basin Authority, claim that it is necessary to have barrages across the bottom of the Murray River because of the upstream irrigation industries [1]. There is no equivalent large-scale irrigation in Singapore, but they have barrages across the Marina channel. Marina barrages Singapore

In Singapore, unlike Australia, the government freely admit that the barrages have dammed the estuary to create a freshwater reservoir. Such refreshing honesty.

Singapore is a tiny country with not much freshwater [2]. An official website explains [3]:

“Built across the mouth of the Marina Channel, the Marina Barrage creates Singapore’s 15th reservoir, and the first in the heart of the city. With a catchment area of 10,000 hectares, or one-sixth the size of Singapore, the Marina catchment is the island’s largest and most urbanised catchment. Together with two other new reservoirs, the Marina Reservoir increased Singapore’s water catchment from half to two-thirds of the country’s land area in 2011.”

“As the water in the Marina Basin is unaffected by the tides, its water level will be kept constant all year round. This is ideal for all kinds of recreational activities such as boating, windsurfing, kayaking and dragonboating…”

And this blog post is to reintroduce you to the revamped Myth and the Murray website that includes more information about the River Murray barrages … www.mythandthemurray.org

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Absurd Murray Darling Basin Plan Now Irreversible

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THE key plank of the national water reform agenda in Australia, the Murray Darling Basin Plan, was presented to the Australian Parliament on 22nd November 2012, and was passed with the support of the Coalition on 29th November. There was a dis-allowance motion, but that expired earlier this week. The same day, Tuesday 19th March 2013, Federal Water Minister Tony Burke was reported crowing that the implementation of the plan is now “irreversible” and that the Basin will now benefit from “an extra 3,200 billion litres of water a year”.[1]

What nonsense. There is no extra water. There will simply be a redistribution of water to the Lower Lakes. That is what the plan is in essence all about, more water for South Australia and in particular a massive artificial lake system that has been in ecological decline since the building of 7.6 kilometres of sea dyke in the 1930s. [2]

The Goolwa Sea Dyke

Public statements from The Minister have made much of the need for the “extra” water to keep the mouth of the Murray open [1]. But this is also a lie.

Along the NSW and Queensland coastlines local governments recognise that river mouths must be constantly dredged to maintain safe passage for boats and to avoid flooding of communities in the lower reaches. This was particularly the case recently following ex-cyclone Oswald with the associated storm surges throwing up sand that blocked river mouths.

But when it comes to the Murray’s mouth, rather than the local Lake Alexandrina council paying for some dredging, the federal Water Minister promises thousands of gigalitres of freshwater from upstream to scour the mouth!

Mr Burke repeatedly justifies the new Basin Plan with the explanation that by taking 2,750 gigalitres of water from food producers and sending it down to the Lower Lakes the Murray’s Mouth will be kept open 90 percent of the time [3].

We surely are a rich country if we can afford to spend between $3.4 and $5.5 billion in freshwater, water that could otherwise be used to grow food, to keep this narrow and shallow channel open to the Southern Ocean.

But the story as repeated by Mr Burke is actually even more bizarre because the sea dykes that the Minister never mentions, block the flow of freshwater to the mouth.

The sea dykes have also limited the potential for scouring of the Murray’s Mouth by the tides of the Southern Ocean.

Indeed back in 1856, South Australia’s Surveyor General George Woodroffe Goyder recognised the potential of the Mundoo channel to scour the Murray’s Mouth. He suggested the natural process of deepening and widening the Murray’s sea mouth be enhanced by cutting through the rock bar across this channel thus further concentrating tidal water inflow and river water outflow. The rock bar is of calcareous sandstone and a relic of sea level rise about 125,000 years ago. Instead over the last 156 years government policy has worked to stop the tide and block the channel.

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[1] Watershed moment for our mighty River Murray as Murray Darling Basin plan becomes fixed. March 19, 2013. By David Jean and Tim Dornin http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/watershed-moment-for-our-mighty-river-murray-as-murray-darling-basin-plan-becomes-fixed/story-e6frea83-1226600145482

[2] There are five sea dykes, known locally as barrages, and their impact on the lower Murray is explained at the Lakes Need Water website http://www.lakesneedwater.org/the-case-for-an-estuary

[3] Draft Murray Plan: Tony Burke, Radio National, Breakfast, April 12, 2012 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/draft-murray-plan-tony-burke/3945288

For a more detailed overview of the situation read ‘Save the Murray: Restore the Estuary’ available for download here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Murray-Estuary_Sydney-Institute-Paper-2.pdf

Gone Fishing

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I am going to take some time out from this blog to try and complete a couple of projects that I’ve started, but am having trouble finishing. So there may be no new posts here for a while.

In the meantime you can subscribe for my irregular email updates here:
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/subscribe/

And check the ‘Community Home’ page for updates from other readers with their nature photographs and more here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/category/community/

And here’s a picture I took of a fisher, a darter cormorant, in Kakadu National Park a few years ago.

Interestingly according to one account of life in the Lower Murray in South Australia one hundred years ago there was a bounty on cormorants (that are closely related to darters), with 34,000 taken in one year ostensibly because they ate too many fish [1].

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