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April 10, 2009
I flew back into Adelaide from New Zealand across Lake Alexandrina and saw an utterly parched Murray River system basin. I then heard that inflows into the Murray Darling Basin are at record lows and that the Murray River has become a toxic drain, due to a discontinuous blue-green algae bloom in an 800km stretch of the river from Lake Hume to Barham. Hell, Lake Albert near the Murray's mouth, is in danger of becoming equivalent of battery acid.
Good news though. The Murray-Darling Basin states and the Commonwealth have established a high-level panel of leading experts and senior officials to advise on the ongoing response to the blue-green algae outbreak currently affecting the River Murray. No worries then.
But we have the politics of the water as well its administration. Tim Stubbs, from the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, says:
If we no longer want this national treasure to be little more than a toxic open drain we need to reset the system. We need to ensure we have enough water to keep the river, floodplains and wetlands healthy and use what is left to grow more produce with less water. The potential impacts of climate change underline the need to make this adjustment sooner rather than later so that we are in a position to manage out future in a more proactive way then just praying for rain.
The damage is self-inflicted. It is not just the drought (record low inflows). Nor is it just climate change. If irrigators take water out according to a set of rules and too much water is being taken out within the rules, then the problem lies with the set of rules and those who set the rules. Those who historically set the rules are the states and now the Commonwealth. They have mismanaged the system to the point of turning an iconic river into a toxic drain.
We are taking about 80% of the water from the Murray-River with around 70% taken by agriculture and flood irrigating dairy pasture, rice and cotton; the companies and agri businesses currently pay very very little for the water (13c ents a litre)l; and the states gave away too many rights to use water that was not really there. Developmentalism still rules, even though the consequence of developmentalism for profit is a trashed system. There is now not enough water for agriculture in the lower part of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The implication of no river flows is that the southern lagoon of the Coorong becomes Australia's dead sea. The most likely solution for the southern lakes is that the barrages are moved upstream to Wellington, sea water flows into lower lakes, and the dairy industry around the lakes ends without compensation being paid.
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It is so true, so sensible and so imperative when Tim Stubbs says it. From down here at the end of the sewer on Lake Alexandrina things are looking incredibly bleak. Over-allocation has left us with an ecological disaster in the Coorong and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert Ramsar site and now a whole swathe of very questionable engineering solutions are being referred. What we need first and foremost is freshwater for the river - everyone else gets their share when the river has enough for its health. More info at hurrysavethemurray.com