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September 10, 2008
The Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs Committee inquiry into finding water for the Lower Lakes and Corrong held hearings in Adelaide yesterday. It heard from CSIRO that Adelaide could wean itself off River Murray water through storm water harvesting, better demand management and improved catchments in the Mt Lofty Ranges.
Gary Sauer-Thompson, Myponga Reservoir, 2008
Adelaide draws about 200 gigalitres from the River Murray each year. This requires an extra 600 gigalitres to cover evaporation. The CSIRO points out that around 160 gigalitres of storm water drained into from Adelaide into the sea each year and that it is feasible to capture a quarter to a third of this and store it in aquifers for reuse.
The Rann Government has dismissed this option in favour of a 100 gigalitre capacity desalinization plant. It's the centralised corporate water solution that is favoured.
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Good news for once.
I see that Queensland has released allocations for almost 11 billion litres of water to the Murray-Darling system in a response to the move by the federal and NSW governments to purchase the Toorale cotton station to restore flows to the basin. The 91,000ha Toorale property at the junction of the Darling and Warrego rivers will be turned into a national park to be managed by NSW and its dam walls will be removed to boost flows from Queensland to the Murray-Darling by up to 80gigalitres a year.