Water

I chaired a water seminar for Martin Leet of The Brisbane Institute a couple of weeks ago. Martin has put a report together on the event, click here. I introduced the seminar by suggesting there was nothing more important, after water, than the exchange of information. The first speaker, Blair Nancarrow from CSIRO Land and Water, promptly explained how you could provide people with all the information in the world, but if they didn’t trust you, or the process, you would get nowhere.

Blair was specifically talking about the difficulty of getting people to accept that recycled waste water from sewerage treatment plants can be made safe to drink.

Various studies have indicated that recycling is a real option for many Australian cities and probably one of the best option for securing Brisbane’s water supply in the medium term. But it is politically difficult.

The Mayor of Toowoomba, a regional centre 100 odd kilometers to the west of Brisbane, is trying to force the concept on residents and she is encountering a heap of resistance.

Interestingly, according to Blair’s survey work people are more likely to accept recycled waste water if it comes via an underground aquifer – rather than straight from the treatment plant.

The Western Australian Government has perhaps picked up on this finding with an announcement today that it is considering “injecting” treated waste water into a local aquifer:

The Western Australian Government is examining ways to convert waste water into drinking water. The Managed Aquifer Recharge Project will look at the potential to inject treated waste water into aquifers and then reclaim the water for irrigation and hopefully for drinking. Premier Geoff Gallop says 100 gigalitres of waste water is pumped into the ocean each year. Dr Gallop says while $3 million will be spent on the study, similar schemes are already in operation across the world.

I was interested to read that this recycling project could recover perhaps 100 gigalitres of water. The proposed Perth desalination plant was only going to deliver 45 gigalitres – about the same amount that could be produced by reducing tree cover in the catchment.

And a cautionary note on water restrictions:

Before it started raining here in Brisbane, the local city council introduced water restrictions with much fanfare about how we should all do the right thing by the environment and not water our gardens, shower together, etcetera, etcetera. Anyway, the restrictions have proven so popular we have saved twice as much water as intended. The Mayor is now complaining because there will be a hole in his budget from all the water savings – water Brisbane residents won’t be paying for.

According to the Environment Australia website, Macquarie Marsh grazier’s have a saying “Fat ducks mean fat cattle”. Of course all this is dependent on water.

Across Australia there is an expectation that we will all have to pay a bit more for our water, and use water more efficiently.

Interestingly Macquarie Marsh graziers get their water for free as environmental flow.

In contrast the NSW State Water Corporation expects the upstream irrigators to pay for their water and significantly more from next year.

The price of water may increase from $6.6 $8.24 per megalitre to $16.53 $19.49 per megalitre next financial year for the Macquarie Valley.

If the Marsh graziers paid the same as irrigators for their average annual water useage I calcuate they would be up for $2.55 $3.19 million dollars this year and $6.4 $7.55 million dollars next financial year.*

Under current arrangements, however, they pay nothing as the water for the pasture for their cattle is delivered as an environmental flow allocation.

This is on the understanding that “fat cattle equals fat ducks”.

This assumes the graziers are looking after the marshes and the “duck habitat”.

I suggested at my post last Thursday titled Cattle Killing the Macquarie Marshes that there was evidence of severe overgrazing.

Following that post, Ian Mott’s commented that my “single photo of a self selected point in time tells us nothing about sustainability”.

Fair comment. So I am posting a second picture.

I have been given permission to republish a picture from Australian Geographic (volume 77). The photograph was taken in 2002 at the same site as the photograph I showed in the earlier post.

To see photograph taken in 2002,click here.

To see photograph taken in 2005, click here.

Both photographs are of the south western boundary of the North Marsh Nature Reserve. The fence is the line of demarcation between an overgrazed private property and ungrazed nature reserve.

It seems reasonable to conclude that, at least at this site, overgrazing has been occuring for a few years.

It begs the questions, should there be some controls on stocking rates in the marshes and should the graziers get all their water for free?

………….
* My calculation is based on the following: Irrigation water in the Macquarie Valley is currently priced at $6.6 per megalitre ($2.81 general security and $3.79 usage) next year the price may increase to $16.53 ($3.45 general security and $13.08 usage) based on water corporation submissions to IPART Bulk Water Price Review. The average annual inflow to the marshes is 440,169 megalitres. 88% of the marsh area is privately owned and grazed.

Update 26th October 2005, 7.30pm.

* My calculation is based on the following: Irrigation water in the Macquarie Valley is currently priced at $8.24 per megalitre next year the price may increase to $19.49 based on submissions to IPART Bulk Water Price Review. The average annual inflow to the marshes is 440,169 megalitres. 88% of the marsh area is privately owned and grazed. These values relect State Water and DNR charges for general security water. Permanent licences for general security water are being traded at between $1200 and $1500 per megalitre.

I was interested to read at ABC Online yesterday, that Greenpeace has thrown its support behind ambitious plans for a solar powered water desalination plant in Whyalla, South Australia.

I have previously only heard environmental groups criticise such projects – generally suggesting we should just consume less water. Has there been any support for the wind-powered desal plant that I understand will be build for Perth? How advanced is this project?

According to the ABC Online report Whyalla Local councillor Eddie Hughes says desalination plants usually use huge amounts of power and generate greenhouse gases, but solar power would stop this from happening.

He says the plan already has substantial backing from the private sector and would have many benefits for the local community.

“Those benefits would be enormous. This would be the first plant of its type in Australia and if the pilot plant is successful it will demonstrate an environmentally friendly way of not just generating electricity but also providing desalinated water,” he said.

“Greenpeace has used this, what we’ve proposed for Whyalla, as an example of the sort of approach that we should be taking nationally and internationally.”

Whyalla is the largest provincial city in South Australia and the northern gateway to the Eyre Peninsula. It is known for its heavy industry, particularly the enormous iron and steel works.

There was a piece in Melbourne’s The Age newspaper last week in which Associate Professor David Paton from Adelaide University was quoted calling on the Federal Government to start actioning its pledge to put 500 gigalitres of water back into the Murray.

The piece also stated that:

“Bird numbers at the Coorong have fallen from 250,000 in the 1960s and 150,000 in the 1980s to an estimated 50,000.”

This is an incredibly dramatic decline. I wondered which species and why?

So I emailed David Paton on 29th September with the following text:

“I noted your piece today in Melbourne’s Age newspaper and reference to declining numbers of birds in the Coorong.

I was wondering whether or not this information is published and/or how I might access it. Could you possibly send me a copy of any reprints and/or reports with some of the data you quote. I am particularly interested in which species of birds are in decline and what the trend looks like on an annual and seasonal basis back to the 1960s.

I write for NSW rural weekly The Land and also the IPA.”

There was no reply.

The next day I phoned and left a message on his answering machine. No response. Yesterday I phoned again and again left a message on his answering machine.

In the afternoon Associate Professor Paton phoned me.

I explained that I had emailed, that I was interested in the reports and/or research papers on which the piece in The Age was based. I said I was particularly interested in information on the dramatic decline in bird numbers.

He said he was too busy to put together that sort of information for me.

I said I had previously tried to find information on bird numbers at the Coorong – unsuccessfully. The names of the reports and research papers would do – I could track them down.

He said he would send me the report on the plants of the Coorong. I said I would appreciate that, but I was particularly interested in numbers of birds.

I also suggested at some point that if he had time to talk to The Age, he should have time to provide me with some information.

He said that the information was provided to The Age by the Australian Conservation Foundation. The information in the newspaper article was not his responsibility but he would nevertheless send me an email with the relevant information later in the afternoon.

I am still waiting.

I phoned the journalist responsible for the article, Adam Morton. I said I had been speaking with David Paton and asked whether the information in his piece titled ‘Salinity killing Murray River Wetlands’ was from the Australian Conservation Foundation. Morton said it was based on a media release from the Australian Conservation Foundation and Environment Victoria but that he had phoned Paton to run the figures past him – that is the bird numbers as quoted in the media release. He said he had phoned Paton because he is the recognised expert in the field and has been working in the area for 20 years. He said Paton had confirmed the numbers were accurate.

David Paton has time for Kerry O’Brien, Alexandra de Blas and a 30 part series for radio 5UV, but not it seems to send me an email with references supporting information published in The Age or to put any of his publications up at his university homepage.

Some other University of Adelaide faculty members have lots of information at their homepages, for example Nicolas Stevens.

In December 2003 the IPA published my review of some key indicators of Murray River health, the Backgrounder is titled ‘Myth and the Murray: Measuring the Real State of the River Environment‘.

Today’s Courier Mail (pg 57) has a piece titled ‘Rainfall hits five-year low’ explaining how little rain has fallen in Brisbane while noting that the Gold Coast was deluged in June.

It goes on to explain that the Gold Coast City Council wants to lift some of its water restrictions but that Brisbane’s Lord Major is complaining this would jeopardize the increased water restrictions he has planned for Brisbane.

Given the Gold Coast and Brisbane draw their water from different dams, why can’t they have different levels of water restrictions?

The Queensland Premier has been talking up how bad it could be for Brisbane. He was reported in The Australian last week refering to absolute worst case scenarios including that modelling has shown that without rain and without water restrictions, Brisbane would be without water by December 2006. The water restrictions currently being promoted by Brisbane City Council would apparently push this date to February 2007. It hardly seems worth all the pain?

Paul Sheehan writing in today’s Sydney Morning Herald blames the Queensland National Party for Cubbie Station and the water it holes up. Water that goes to grow cotton in Queensland instead of sheep in NSW. Sheehan writes:

“The Sinkhole, for example, breaks every rule of communal morality. It is better known as Cubbie Station, and it is an act of economic war by one state, Queensland, against another state, NSW. Cubbie is a source of rage for the former NSW premier, Bob Carr. Privately, he urged his fellow Labor Premier, Peter Beattie, to buy the station and take it out of production for the national good. Beattie was sympathetic, but Queensland is Queensland, the bulldozer is still king, and the Queensland Nats will die in a ditch to protect Cubbie Station.

This applies doubly to the Canberra press gallery’s latest pin-up boy, Senator Barnaby Joyce, whose political base is dominated by Cubbie and whose Senate campaign was funded in large part by Cubbie.”

I don’t have much sympathy for Cubbie Station, the Queensland Nationals, or Barnaby Joyce, but I am not sure Sheehan has told the whole story.

Cubbie managed to get its water, and keep its water, by playing and beating consequtive state and federal governments (Labor, National and Coalition)at their own game.

Cubbie’s story as told by ‘Smart Rivers’is at http://www.smartrivers.com/background.htm .

What is most striking to me about the Dirranbandi and St George communities that support Cubbie is their holistic approach to survival. They work in with, and employ the local aboriginals. They work in with, and employ the best scientists. They somehow managed to get Barnaby Joyce to Canberra.

Cross over the border from Dirranbandi into NSW and it looks and feels different. Many of the town centres are boarded up – they obviously have a crime problem. Aboriginal problems I’ve been told. It is so bad in at least one town that they are using plastic instead of glass in the windows of new government commissioned homes – I was told.

I have previously written expressing concern for the NSW graziers, and their Coolibahs, that have lost flood waters, see
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000629.html .

As explained in the above post of 26th May, I offered to plot the river height data against rainfall to help illustrate the problem – but they still haven’t manage to send me the data file in a format that I can open.