Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Water

Give the Sheep a Drink Now

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There has been heavy rain and even flooding in northern South Australia and parts of western Victoria. But irrigators upstream in the New South Wales Murray Valley are running out of water and what little remains is stagnant and becoming contaminated.

Right now about 1,000 farmers in this region are out of water and sheep are dying as farm dams empty.

NSW Riverina stranded sheep Jan2007 blog1.JPG
This is the first year since the late 1930s, when the irrigation channels were first dug, that there has been no water for stock. Photograph taken by John Lolicato, Wakool, Murray Valley, January 2007.

These farmers began the season with a zero water allocation. This means they knew they would get no water from the licenses they held; from the entitlements they owned.

Many were hoping to get through the season with water saved from the year before, while others purchased water at considerable expense as a temporary trade to keep their stock alive.

Then just before Christmas they had 52 percent of this carry-over or newly purchased water taken off them by the New South Wales government.

Most farms within the Murray Irrigation boundaries are now facing the prospect of no ‘stock and domestic’ water for the first time since the beginning of irrigation in the region in the late 1930s.

Many irrigators in the Murray Valley claim the decision to take their water was unjustified as there is still water in the dams at the top of the catchment, in the Snowy scheme, but governments have been saving this for electricity generation and for Adelaide.

Instead of providing the farmers with stock and dometic water, the New South Wales government has in effect offered them $20 million dollars in compensation with any single farmer eligible for up to $50,000. Government has said that the water it has taken will be re-credited as soon as there is sufficient rainfall and that the $20 million is not compensation, but rather “extraordinary assistance”.

Why didn’t government buy the water, rather than just taking it, in the first place?

Perhaps because State governments are used to just taking water. Indeed across Australia a majority of irrigators often pay for water they never receive as they are locked into a system whereby 60 percent of their water entitlement is as a fixed charge, payable whether or not the water is provided.

Governments justify this arrangement on the basis they have to manage the water infrastructure whether or not there is a drought. In effect, state run water monopolies are saying, farmers should plan for drought, while we, government, are incapable of the same.

The $20 million payment smacks to me of a bribe in advance of the upcoming New South Wales state election.

ABC Online has suggested the $20 million was promised to avert the possibility of legal action by irrigators.

Normally state governments decide at the beginning of the season how much water they have in dams, likely inflows, and how much they can allocate for irrigation and other uses.

The decision by the New South Wales government to take water from irrigators during the season is unprecedented.

The $20 million Extraordinary Assistance Program for Murray and Murrumbidgee irrigators has been welcomed by the NSW Irrigators Council while the Council has noted that irrigators actually lost $57million in water late last year.

Many farmers would just like some water and all the New South Wales government needs to do is let it out of the Snowy Scheme. This would reduce the amount of water in reserve, but why deny farmers access to stock and domestic water now? There is an immediate need, and now is the time to act.

NSW Riverina sheep stranded close up Jan2007 blog 2.JPG
Photograph taken by John Lolicato, Wakool, Murray Valley, January 2007.

NSW Riverina dead sheep Jan2007 blog3.JPG
Where is Peta on this one? Photograph taken by John Lolicato, Wakool, Murray Valley, January 2007.

Brisbane to Vote on Waste Water Recycling

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I live in Brisbane, in south east Queensland, and the city has historically relied on three dams for all its water. Not so many years ago politicians boasted that the dams were big and we would always have enough water.

Now we have level 4 water restrictions, which means that if I want to water my garden I can only do it on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday during specified hours and with a single bucket. All hosing is banned. Sprinklers are something we have already almost forgotten ever existed. It really is bizarre that gardening should come to this.

I have written that Brisbane should recycle its water and build a desalination plant or two, click here for the piece entitled ‘No More Excuses’ originally published in the local newspaper, The Courier Mail.

The Australian Water Association has said that if Brisbane recycled its water there would be 40 percent more water in the system. I am all for it, but the politicians have been dragging their feet while claiming the water crisis is all the fault of climate change. We have had a few dry years, but there are also lots more people. Indeed infrastructure has not kept pace with population in this fastest growing region in Australia.

Then just the other week the Queensland Labor Premier, Peter Beattie, announced that on 17 March 2007 south east Queensland residents will vote on the permanent introduction of recycled water into existing water supplies.

Just today the leader of the Liberal Party, Bruce Flegg, launched a water options website at www.wateroptions.net. There is some good information there about water recycling, water in south east Queensland and attitudes to recycling.

Interestingly local ABC radio has run a poll on water recycling and last time I looked most people (74 percent) just wanted the government to get on with the job of water recycling: http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/vote/total.htm .

Anyway, if you live in Queensland you can have your say and vote at: http://wateroptions.net/campaigns/1/ .

But if you just want to be really scared click here: https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/001514.html .

How To Solve Perth’s Water Woes: A Note from Warwick Hughes

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Dear Jennifer,

I have enjoyed reading Mark’s articles at On Line Opinion entitled ‘Fired-Up Forests Have More Impact than Loggers’ and agree with much of what he says. But he must check his facts regarding thinning in Perth water supply catchments.

The Wungong catchment is only 3.8% of the area of Perth catchments. So it is incorrect to say, “Western Australia has been quick to take advantage… ”

This thinning is only a tiny trial, just a PR effort so the West Austraslian government water organisations can trumpet that they are doing something and most of what they say has to have spin “fine tooth combed” out before truth emerges.

The reality of what is happening in Perth water supply catchments can be seen in my graphic at http://au.geocities.com/perth_water/ scroll down to, “Graphic of Catchment Efficiency 1980-2005 showing disastrous falloff 1996-2005 after ceasing catchment management.” Click on thumbnail for a larger graphic.

It is perfectly clear from my graphic that the West Australian government is de facto decommissioning Perth catchments. If catchments had been managed post 1996 as they were before that date so as to keep yields steady, Perth would have enjoyed about 90 GL extra water per year on average. Equal to production from two Kwinana sized seawater desalination plants, which require an investment of about $500 million each now. That puts on scale the cost of catchment neglect.

This colossal bungling extends into other areas of water resources.

North of Perth a pine plantation at Gnangara suppresses the potential of the groundwater there by about 100 GL per year. With incremental water valued by investment required in seawater desalination, Govt claims that the pines are needed to support a proposed plywood industry is simply ludicrous. Timber can easily be sourced on the open market if anyone is of a mind to make plywood and the pines must have a negative net present value now in view of their manifest billion dollar damage to groundwater potential.

The Avon, Murray and Collie Rivers pass about twice Perth’s total water consumption each year but in a weakly saline state. Surely desalination of a small part of these flows would be cheaper and lower impact than seawater desalination and could take place away from the fragile and crowded coast. In fact a private company, Agritech has been valiantly trying to interest the government in a proposal to desalinate water currently wasted to sea each year from the Wellington dam near Collie. This proposal would be at no capital cost to government and would produce water at half government desalination costs and would I am told use gravity in the process thus cutting back greatly on electricity.

Perth is not running out of water, the water is running out of Perth.

The Ancient Romans were vastly better water managers than the West Australian government.

Regards, Warwick Hughes

Who’s “Utterly Wrong” on The Murray?

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In the December 2004 issue of Quadrant magazine I had an article published entitled ‘Why Save the Murray’. It began:

“I WAS SURPRISED when I learned that the Australian [newspaper] was running a “Saving the Murray” campaign. I realised that journalists often fail in their quest for the truth, but I assumed that they at least subscribed to the ideal. Campaigning – organised action to achieve a particular end – is the antithesis of honest reporting.

Environmentalism is now big business and big politics. It would therefore seem important that journalists at our national daily newspaper scrutinise the actions and the media releases from politicians, environmental activists and the growing industry and research lobby, particularly on an issue as important as the Murray River. Yet they were running a campaign.”

In the piece I went on to document the campaign, and how much of what the newspaper writes on the River is propaganda rather than news or considered opinion.

I knew it was a bad career move, so to speak, taking on the nation’s daily newspaper. But gee their editorial today, entitled ‘Weighing up Water‘ is a bit mean:

“IN 2001, The Australian launched a campaign to save the ailing Murray River. In daily reports during a 2200km journey along the nation’s mightiest waterway from Albury to its mouth at the Coorong, this newspaper’s Amanda Hodge catalogued its precarious plight as a result of salination, over-irrigation, and pollution…
The Australian’s Murray campaign was challenged by the conservative Institute of Public Affairs, which released a report showing the river’s condition had not deteriorated in 15 years. They were utterly wrong. Five years after Hodge’s journey and faced with the looming reality that the present drought may see the Murray run dry, John Howard and the premiers of the four southeastern states have finally agreed on a plan to overhaul the nation’s water management by fast-tracking both a system of interstate trading of water entitlements and water conservation projects.”

No. My report ‘ Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment’ was factually correct. Furthermore, it didn’t show “no deterioration”. It actually documented improvement!

In the report I also explained that while it is generally believed that irrigation diversions leave too little water in the river. In reality, as a consequence of the building of dams and weirs, the water level in the river is unnaturally high for much of the length of the river, most of the time.

Now in 2006 with record low inflows into the Murray, there is much hand wringing because the river might run dry. If this happens, the consequences will be devastating for many industries. But it won’t necessarily be devastating for the ecology of the river. Australian rivers naturally run dry during drought. What is most unnatural is to continue to push large quantities of water downstream during drought.

We’ll see if the Australian publishes the letter to the editor which I’ve just drafted and sent off now.

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Update 10th November, 2006

My letter was published today in The Australian and is available online:

Facts, not exaggeration

YOUR editorial (“Weighing up water”, 9/11) claims that a report by the Institute of Public Affairs was “utterly wrong” to conclude that the condition of the Murray River had not deteriorated in 15 years. Actually, all the evidence does support the IPA’s findings.

Our 2003 report showed that salt levels had halved at key sites, Murray cod and sliver perch numbers were on the increase and that while there were many stressed red gums in South Australia, forests in NSW and Victoria were generally healthy and supported large populations of water birds.

The report also explained that it’s generally believed that irrigation diversions leave too little water in the river. In reality, as a consequence of the building of dams and weirs, the water level in the river was unnaturally high for much of the length of the river, most of the time.

Now, in 2006, with record low inflows into the Murray, there is much hand-wringing because the river might run dry. If this happens, the consequences will be devastating for many industries. But it won’t necessarily be devastating for the ecology of the river. Australian rivers naturally run dry during drought. What is most unnatural is to continue to push large quantities of water downstream during drought.

Sensible water policy needs to be based on facts, not exaggeration.

Dr Jennifer Marohasy
Senior fellow, Institute of Public Affairs
Melbourne

Key Outcomes: Summit on the Southern Murray Darling Basin

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The Commonwealth and Governments of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland agreed or noted at this morning’s water summit on the Southern Murray Darling Basin (MDB):

1. The need for a shared understanding of the likely water availability over the next year and a half.

2. The need for an informed whole of Basin approach to be developed collaboratively, not by jurisdictions acting without regard to the consequences for other States.

3. Establish a group of high-level officials drawn from First Ministers’ Departments and the MDB Commission to examine contingency planning to secure urban and town supplies during 2007-08. This group will report to First Ministers by 15 December 2006.

4. Accelerate the implementation of key aspects of the NWI, especially on water trading, overallocation, water accounting and data sharing. Ensure that permanent interstate trading will commence in the southern MDB States by 1 January 2007 as recommended by the National Water Commission. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland also agreed in substance to accept the advice from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on exit fees.

5. Not intervene in Snowy Hydro Ltd commercial arrangements this year.

6. Commission the CSIRO to report progressively by the end of 2007 on sustainable yields of surface and groundwater systems within the MDB, including an examination of assumptions about sustainable yield in light of changes in climate and other issues.

7. The Commonwealth will process speedily its response to major projects under the Australian Government Water Fund.

8. The Commonwealth indicated it was providing over $2.3 billion for a wide range of drought assistance in EC-affected areas, and announced a new initiative (costing approximately $210 million over two years) to extend income support and interest rate subsidies to the owners of small businesses that receive 70 per cent of their income from farm businesses.

9. The States have agreed to pay 10 per cent of interest costs under the Commonwealth’s small business announcement. The States have also agreed to consider a Commonwealth proposal that they follow the lead of Victoria in providing a 50 per cent rebate for municipal and shire rates to eligible recipients, and also to waive or rebate water charges (or equivalents thereof) in EC declared areas where water allocations have been substantially reduced.

10. It has already been agreed that water and climate change would be items for consideration at the next COAG meeting.

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I wrote a blog piece earlier today entitled ‘Murray River: Last Year Biggest Environmental Flow, This Year Water Crisis’ on the water shortage issue.

Murray River: Last Year Biggest Environmental Flow, This Year Water Crisis

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The Prime Minister, John Howard, has called a summit to discuss the water crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The meeting, being held as I write this blog, was apparently triggered by the NSW government decision to suspend water trading on the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers and the low state of the dams in New South Wales and Victoria.

According to Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, the big dams on the river will be just about empty by Autumn if it doesn’t rain.

Leader of the Australian Greens Bob Brown is claiming there has been a problem for years, the government has done nothing, and “seventy per cent of the river red gums along the Murray are either dead or dying.”

There are a few dead red gums along the Murray. But anyone who lives along the river, regularly visits the river, or saw the recent ABC series ‘Two Men in a Tinnie’ would know most of the river red gums along both the Darling and Murray Rivers are very much alive. Another huge porkie from Mr Brown! Another piece of misleading, probably originally from the MDBC.

What seems to have been forgotten in all the recent hand wringing is that just last October the NSW and Victorian governments – the same governments who this year are complaining their dams are empty – made the world’s largest delivery of environmental water letting the equivalent of a Sydney Harbor of water flood the Barmah-Millewa red gum forest which straddles the Murray River upstream of Echuca.

According to a Victorian government report on water operations: “The joint release saw 513 gigalitres of water delivered to the forest and the inundation of over half of the forest floodplain, resulting in greatly improved condition for wetland vegetation and breeding activity for key wetland fauna. Wetland vegetation, including moira grass and the threatened wavy marshwort, responded with significantly improved condition and the flooding waters provided for new growth and canopy regeneration in stressed river red gums. The release also triggered large reproductive events in important native fish species such as golden perch and the threatened silver perch as well as in many water bird species, including the great egret, darters, spoonbills, grebes, ibis and cormorants, and the critically endangered intermediate egret.”

All this during one of the worst droughts on record!

Then there is the water being sucked up from regrowth following the January 2003 bushfires in the upper catchment, new plantations, groundwater licences being activated by farmers who can now trade that water, improved on-farm water use efficiency and recycling some of this in place because of a past fear of rising groundwater tables*, water being evaporated by the Murray Darling Basin Commission’s salt interception schemes and low rainfall …and it is not that surprising that the region has a chronic water shortage.

But rather than do a proper water audit and work out the relative contribution of these factors which have probably all contributed to the current problem, governments and many key commentators keep blaming climate change. Yet the rainfall record for the MDB doesn’t show an abnormal decline.**

BOM to 2005 rainfall.JPG
Rainfall record for the Murray Darling Basin from 1900 to the end of 2005.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann said he would use today’s summit to ensure water reached the bottom of the Murray-Darling basin. Yeah, many South Australians see the river as nothing more than an channel for getting water from the Hume and Dartmouth dams to Adelaide and their wine grape growers.

But sorry Mr Rann, noone can ensure that their will be water for South Australia if the dams run dry.

In advance of the summit, the National Farmers Federation Executive Director, Ben Fargher, put out a media release saying, “As a first priority, we need to ensure that towns which support regional communities have certainty over water supply. “There must also be a clear strategy to effectively manage core breeding stock, permanent plantings and other production issues in order to protect Australia’s agricultural base through this unprecedented drought.”

But that’s also impossible Mr Fargher if there is no water.

If the Murray runs dry next year it would be devastating for farmers and rural communities that draw their water from the river, but it would not be a disaster for the environment. Australian rivers run dry. Water levels in the Murray River have been artificially high so far this drought, because of the dams and weirs.

Dry Murray 1914 blog3.JPG
The Murray River at Riversdale in 1914.

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The Murray River at Riversdale early this year.

Here’s some really ridiculous commentary from an article in last week’s The Age to illustrate the extent to which our politicians and environmentalists seem to not really care or understand the issue. They don’t seem to understand that if you don’t have any water, there will be none to save, and none for the environment. The article follows an announcement by Mr Turnbull inviting farmers and irrigators to participate in an “excess water scheme”.

“The scheme will provide an incentive for those with water entitlements in the southern Murray-Darling Basin to cut their water use.

Farmers could switch from flood-irrigating an orchard to using water drippers, for example, and sell the water they saved from their entitlements to the Federal Government.

… Peter Cosier, from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, slammed the tender, claiming it was “too complex” and “too bureaucratic”.

Mr Cosier said Australia was “way behind” its target to return 500 billion litres to the Murray River by 2009. “We don’t have time to muck around with inefficient grant schemes because they are not delivering water for the environment.”

… Opposition environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said that while Labor supported buying water, the Murray needed water now, not in 2009.

… Meanwhile, the Murray-Darling Water Crisis Management Council warned that the Hume Dam – a source of water to many towns and now at only 11 per cent capacity – would run dry in 24 weeks unless all environmental flows down the Murray were suspended.”

No Mr Albanese, the river doesn’t need water now, it’s all the industries that have grown up along the river that need water now. Without the dams and weirs built for these same industries the river would have already run dry.

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* I explain how past policies driven by a fear of rising groundwater and spreading salinity may have artificially dehydrated the landscape in a piece I recently wrote for OLO: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5076 .

** I have recently explained that blaming the current drought on climate change is indeed drawing a long bow in a piece for the Courier Mail: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20678328-27197,00.html