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December 26, 2006
I've just got back from walking along the edge of the Murray River downstream of Goolwa and just before the river's mouth on the western side. We had planned to walk to the mouth of the river and stand on Barker's Knoll However, it was too hot and we ran out of time.
On the Goolwa side of the river people were mucking around in boats and jet skis and having lots of Xmas holidays fun. This part of the river was a playground for Adelaideans. It was a different story on the Murray Mouth side of the barrages. There was no flow over the last barrage and the level of water was downstream of the Goolwa barrage was very low. The river looked sick and smelt fetid.
I looked back up stream, imagined a map of the Murray-Darling Basin and recalled the water restrictions, the low water levels in the dams, the lack of rain in the catchment areas and thought ---welcome to the new world of global warming. This is what it is going to look like. Water restrictions (capping demand) is not the answer. It's lack of supply that's the problem.
My next thought was that Adelaide still depends on the River Murray for its drinking water. That means Adelaide is pretty much stuffed. It's future will depend on recycling and desalinisation plants. Yet the Rann state government, like the other State governments in capital cities, which have a water crisis, has continued to take the profits from its water utility, rather than reinvesting the money in new infrastructure. How shortsighted is the SA Treasury then?
Are they waiting for the rains to come, just like the Nationals? Maybe they---state Treasury officials and ministers in the Rann Government--- should go have a look at Perth and then start working on a long-term water strategy for Adeliade. After all, the Premier does go on about climate change being a big issue and the need for CoAG to address it. So where is the long-term water strategy for the capitol city?
Does any state government have one? Or is it still mostly spin? Surely the performance on the Living Murray Initiative is an example of inaction: at the end of 2006 not a drop has yet been returned to the Murray River. After two years of delay the commonwealth has determined it will restrict future purchase of water entitlements to water derived from efficiency savings. Yet it is the over-allocation of water for irrigation that is the primary source of the water crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin---not the drought as the Nationals keep saying.
If we come back to Adelaide we find that developers are not being encouraged to explore water saving,water reuse, energy conservation and production. The Hindmarsh Island marina development ----a big new pleasure play ground----is a wasted opportunity. None of the McMansions have water tanks or facitlities to recycle their grey water.
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So why is the dopey South Australian government building a new 2 billion dollar super-suburb to house 15,000 people when the whole place is on water restrictions. Do they, or do they not know, something we dont?
You would think the Greens would rain down howls of fire and protest over this, but no, silence.
The Government has the place on L2 water restrictions now, with permanent L3 to start from Jan' 1.
Capital works for the next four years is planned to be 3.7 billion over 4 yrs, leaving just 1.5 billion over the period for works. Tax cuts will absorb 800- mill per year over the same period.
There dosent seem to be a plan for making water: How Odd.
Do they plan to house camels in Adelaide when the place is abandoned by everyone for better climes?