January 7, 2010
Once again we see the effects of the slow action by the Rudd Government in addressing the dysfunctional federal governance of the Murray-Darling and the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin.The new Murray-Darling Basin plan to set sustainable water-extraction limits and provide increased environmental flows is still some time away from becoming operational. Some time means 2019, due to resistance by the states. So Rudd doesn't deserves much credit on water policy.
We are still left with a "governance" based on the conflicting attitudes and self-interests of the basin states. While individual State Governments continue to manage the water of the Murray-Darling Basin they will serve their own interests it is highly unlikely that the rivers will receive genuine increases in environmental flows of the magnitude required for their revival. The result is an ecologically debilitated Murray-Darling river system, which is what we have now.
The water from Christmas rains that produced floods in the Namoi, Barwon, Castlereagh, Paroo, Culgoa, Bokhara, Macquarie and Bogan rivers in the Darling system will run down the Darling River into Menindee Lakes, in western NSW.
A preliminary estimate is that 300GL would reach Menindee Lakes, but it would not fill the lakes, which had a capacity of 1680GL. Floodwaters are being dammed and diverted upstream, keeping them in New South Wales. More floods are required for water to flow into South Australia and the lower lakes.
The governance model is that NSW has powers over inflows into the Menindee Lakes and other storages. The trigger point where management of the Menindee lakes reverts to joint control under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement is 640 gigalitres. At this point the Murray-Darling Basin Authority assumes responsibility.
NSW has said that it will honour the national Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, which ensures each state gets their share. Of course they will, since there is not enough water coming into the Menindee lakes to trigger water to be released into South Australia. Secondly, the existing regulations allowed NSW to fill dams and flood wetlands before water reached Menindee. Thirdly, water extracted for farm use in NSW was typically pumped straight out of the system or diverted through channels into dams. Fourthly, SA is not guaranteed to receive additional flows even if the trigger point for takeover was reached.
Ian Douglas points out at Unleashed that under the current mode of governance:
it is highly questionable whether there is any incentive for the NSW government to reduce the capacity of private dams and to remove the massive, frequently illegal, surface water impoundments constructed upstream from the Menindee Lakes by agribusinesses seeking to persist with broad-acre irrigation of high-water demand crops in what is predominantly a semi-arid environment.
He adds that cynically these agribusinesses:
made no mention of the fact that they are able to actively prevent vast volumes of surface water, potentially over 6,000 billion litres per year, from entering creeks and rivers in the Basin, as a result of the construction of what are euphemistically referred to as "ring tanks": huge impoundments comprising thousands of kilometres of levees bulldozed across ephemeral floodplains. These earthworks obstruct the natural flow of surface water, preventing it from entering the river system.
This highlights how South Australia, as the downstream state, has had to cop the brunt of the majority of the ecological losses in the system as a consequence of the long and prolonged drought. Clearly, with climate change, the Menindee lakes threshold needs to be overhauled to allow the restoration of environmental flows. These governance arrangements were forged in the 1960s, in the Menzies area, and had little to do with ecological health.The environment gets what water is left over after irrigation and towns take their share.
Fair water sharing today would see the recent rainfall in northern Australia offer the environmental allocation the Lower Lakes need.
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Ian Douglas also points out a big flaw in the new basin plan being prepared by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority:
He adds that:
So things aren't going change that much even with a basin plan, cos the states continue to sabotage the public good and the Commonwealth rolls over.