Water

There has been a lot of rain in central Queensland over the last month. Water has been flowing over the Fairbairn dam spillway and the Nogoa River has flooded the town of Emerald with over 2,000 residents seeking emergency accommodation. The Nogoa River flows into the MacKenzie River which flows into the Fitzroy River which flows into the Great Barrier Reef.

According to environmental researcher Alison Jones floodwaters flowing down the Fitzroy River to the Great Barrier Reef will kill off masses of coral around the Keppel Islands.

So, according to Jones, floodwaters are bad for the reef.

The Dawson River, also flows into the Fitzroy River, and was to have a massive dam built in its headwaters. But development of the Nathan Dam was blocked through a court action brought by the Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

If the Nathan dam had been built on the Dawson River would there now be less flooding of the Great Barrier Reef, or would there be not enough flooding? Is there such a things as just the right amount of flooding?

The Cooper Valley has been dumped on with exceptional rainfall over the past few days. Since Boxing Day, over 700 mm has been recorded in our portion of the catchment.

Last night I was unable to collect three travellers that had booked onto the nocturnal tour because of flooding. Another two, one from Hamburg and the other from Switzerland were awe-struck by the deluge, but eventually I had to abandon the tour. Flooding, landslides and tree falls were commonplace throughout the area.

This is by far the most exciting time of the year for wildlife. A Giant Petilurid, Australia’s largest dragonfly, took refuge from the downfall, in our bathroom. The infrequently seen onychophorans or peripatus are at their most conspicuous. Tree frogs descend from their upper-story concealment in their thousands and produce such a cacophony that it is virtually impossible to be heard.

I was at Burrima in the Macquarie Marshes yesterday for the launch of an important piece of research by Gillian Hogendyk:

The Macquarie Marshes: An Ecological History, published as an Occasional Paper by the Institute of Public Affairs, September 2007.

Speakers included Don Burke (Australian Environment Foundation), Professor David Mitchell (Charles Stuart University) and Bertie Bartholomew an elder from the Wailwan people. It was the closing remarks from Gillian Hogendyk that I found most inspiring:

“I hope this paper brings about a moving on from past disputes, and that all groups in the Macquarie Valley can begin to work cooperatively towards our common goal: a healthy, viable Macquarie Marshes, and healthy, viable Macquarie Valley communities.

The time is right to achieve something really worthwhile for the Marshes. Currently there is a total of almost $206 million dollars of both State and Federal money on the table for the recovery of threatened wetlands in NSW. Surely the Macquarie Marshes, recognised both nationally and internationally, can benefit from this commitment.

However the right decisions for the Marshes must be based on the right information. This is where I hope my paper can be part of the solution. If I could put the message of my paper in a nutshell it would be this:

The Macquarie Marshes are in trouble, and have been for a very long time. We have been told that the solution is simply to buy more environmental water and send it down here. This solution completely ignores some fundamental problems. We now know that a significant part of the environmental water is regularly diverted, and doesn’t reach the Nature Reserves. We know too that large levee banks have been built upstream of both Nature Reserves. We know that the South Marsh has serious erosion problems and the North Marsh has salinity problems.

The good news is that solutions are possible. Like everyone here today, I would like to think that in the future my children and grandchildren will be able to visit and enjoy the Marshes.

Many of those present today have given me great encouragement and have added significantly to the content of my paper. In 2005 thirty Macquarie River Food and Fibre members dug into their own pockets to finance the purchase of this property ‘Burrima’. This was a pivotal moment in the whole marsh debate, as we can now lead by example and show people the results of our rehabilitation efforts here.

Thank you to all the owners of Burrima, to Don, Jennifer, and David for giving your support today, and to everyone who has worked so hard to make this day such a success. Thank you also to Bertie for welcoming us to the country of his ancestors, the Wailwan people.”

This photograph taken by Jennifer Marohasy yesterday (September 26, 2007) shows a grazed area within the Macquarie Marshes adjacent to the northern nature reserve in the north marsh. To the east of the fence line (within the ungrazed northern nature reserve) are reed beds.

“Proposals for 4,000GL ‘overbank’ floods of the Murray River by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council beggar belief” said the chairman of the Australian Environment Foundation, Don Burke.

Mr Burke’s comments came at the conclusion of the foundation’s annual conference in Melbourne where a taskforce of scientists experienced in water, forestry and land management issues was appointed to investigate the VEAC recommendations.

“These draft proposals make recommendations that will see many Murray River communities under floodwaters if they were adopted by the Victorian government”, he said.

The Australian Environment Foundation will investigate the scientific robustness of these recommendations that underpin widespread and radical changes to land and water use along the Murray River.

Mr Burke commented that “Proposals such as these must address the needs of the people as well as the environment to be effective.

“The Australian Environment Foundation is focused on ensuring outcomes for the environment based on science and evidence. It is evident that obtaining 500GL for the Living Murray proposals for environmental flows have not eventuated as planned so we have real concerns about recommendations for either 2,000GL or 4,000GL to underpin these current proposals” concluded Mr Burke.

The Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit, membership-based environment organisation having no political affiliation. The AEF is a different kind of environment group, caring for both Australia & Australians. Many of our members are practical environmentalists – people who actively use and also care for the environment. We accept that environmental protection and sustainable resource use are generally compatible. For more information about the AEF visit www.aefweb.info

Chris and Gill Hogendyk, with a bit of help from this blog, have been working hard to draw attention to the levy banks in the Macquarie Marshes starving the two nature reserves of water.

It seems the mainstream media have finally caught-on with an article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled Cattlemen stealing water, irrigators say .

The piece by Daniel Lewis includes comment from Chris:

“Chris Hogendyk, the head of the irrigator group Macquarie River Food and Fibre, said the Gum Cowal-Terrigal branch of the marshes received less than 10 per cent of flood flows before 1980 but now got up to 30 per cent of what previously went to the nature reserves. There were once no large bird breeding colonies on the system, he said, but now there were several.

“The water should be going to the nature reserves, not onto private land. Once water enters the Gum Cowal-Terrigal system it is diverted and banked up across the floodplain by no less than 30 banks and channels.

“This water creates wonderful feed for fattening cattle, but kills the trees that are flooded. The resulting man-made wetlands are grazed bare.”

“Mr Hogendyk said rather than buying more water, the Government had to get rid of the banks and channels or buy the private land being flooded and set it aside for conservation.”

I understand that contrary to the Sydney Morning Herald article, Chris and Gill are keen for land to be purchased by The Australian Wildlife Conservancy or Bush Heritage – not government.

I am not sure that land needs to be purchased. But some of the levy banks need to be removed and some controls placed on grazing.

This year’s World Water Week will see activists gather in Stockholm to discuss ways of getting clean water to the 1 billion people around the world who are currently without it. But, if water activists remain blinkered by ideology and continue to oppose private water provision, this goal will not be met – as explained in a new paper from the Sustainable Development Network.

Even though private water provision sees clean and safe water delivered to millions around the world, many politicians and NGOs remain irrationally opposed to the idea that profit should be made from “essential resources” like water.

According to the paper’s author, Alex Nash, a water engineer with experience of both public and private sector water projects in less-developed countries, this mindset is actively hindering universal access to water, and with it the achievement of several Millennium Development Goals.

The truth is that many public utilities in less-developed countries suffer from endemic corruption and rarely deliver services equitably – even refusing to recognise and connect slum-dwellers:

“The reality of many state run utilities is not pretty. Bribes, extortion, kickbacks, nepotism, patronage, shoddy technical standards; it’s all in a day’s work.”

Meanwhile, it is the private sector – from individual water porters to larger companies – that fill in the gaps left by dysfunctional state utilities.

The World Bank estimates that in most cities in less developed countries, more than half the population get their water from suppliers other than the public utility. This is the case in many peri-urban areas, as in Asunción Paraguay where 500 aguateros work to supply water to 500,000 people. But political opposition to private water could spell the end of such vital services.

“The net result of these ideologues’ well-meaning efforts is a staunch defence of the corrupt, lazy or incompetent utility managers and mayors. It is a defence of the comfortable middle classes in developing countries who have cheap water while their poorer compatriots queue and walk all day.”

Read the full paper: “Water Provision for the Poor- How ideology muddies the debate”,
by Alex Nash, published 13 August 2007 by the Sustainable Development Network – available for download at http://www.sdnetwork.net/files/pdf/Water_Provision_for_the_Poor.pdf