Imposing Our Prejudices on the Value of Flood Waters: A Note from Cathy Green
Posted by Charlotte Ramotswe, February 28th, 2009 - under Opinion.
Tags: Birds, Floods
WHEN nutrient rich water flows into Lake Eyre it is considered good for the environment, but when nutrient rich water flows into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon it is considered bad for the environment.
Indeed every time that Lake Eyre in central Australia floods, our oh-so-sensitive-to-nature journalists provide us with the sort of happy purple prose that we see on the front page of today’s The Australian, where Jamie Walker says:
“The torrents that swept down the swollen Georgina and Diamantina rivers, mixing in Goyder Lagoon before surging through Warburton Creek and into the lake proper, carry a bounty of new life: nutrient-rich sediments to feed the thirsty native vegetation that has erupted all around it, and in turn herbaceous native rodents; fish for the mass of birds tracking the flood; all the water the wild camels from the Simpson Desert can drink.”
Meanwhile, every time it rains hard enough in north Queensland for rivers to flood into the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, which represents precisely the same phenomenon as the Diamantina feeding Lake Eyre, journalists at The Australian provide us with much lamenting and concern like the following:
“A MASSIVE surge of polluted water has spewed onto the Great Barrier Reef following heavy rains that hit north Queensland last week, environmentalists say.
The WWF estimated up to one million megalitres – enough polluted water to twice fill Sydney Harbour – entered the reef after a monsoon brought drenching rain to north Queensland.
Mr Heath said satellite imagery confirmed water flows travelled to mid-shelf…”
Nature herself simply doesn’t care about the big environmental impacts and changes, no matter how much birthing, killing or (from our perspective) environmental degradation they may cause – it’s all just part and parcel of being a dynamic planet.
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Cathy has a PhD and lives in Far North Queensland.
The photograph of the pelicans was taken by Jennifer Marohasy below the Torrumbarry Weir, Central Murray Valley, in October 2007. Pelicans (Pelecanus conspicillatus) can be found in coastal and inland Australia – where ever there are fish. Some fishermen say that when there are floods on the land there is bounty in the sea.
A few comments on the points I have time to respond to in this discussion. Theres a hugh amount of published literature from studies in the Burdekin (and Fitzroy) on erosion under different pasture and tree cover states. All this shows that hillslope erosion rates can vary by a factor of 100 depending on the status of grass cover and tree cover. One paper to look at that also summarises much of the earlier work is the Bartley et al paper in the journal Hydrological Processes in 2006. This does not include gully erosion which can add another large increase in catchment erosion in poor landscape conditions.
With respect to building 4 more dams on the Burdekin the size of BFD – there are not the dam sites for these. As noted the BDF could be raised substantially but this would only increase trapping from current 60% to perhaps 80%, a fairly small gain. A dam would be needed on the lower Bowen to have a big effect but there is no suitable dam site there. All the other good dam sites are on the upper parts of rivers (e.g. Hells Gate on upper Burdekin and Uranna on upper Bowen) and while useful for water supply will not be good sediment traps. Overall this would be very expensive for minor gains. Far better and economical to manage erosion at source by working with graziers to maintain pasture cover and quality as is happening the current projects in the Burdekin and Fitzroy.
Just a point about the Tully. As I noted recent studies suggest most erosion is still happening in the cropping areas of the lower catchment via drain erosion and streambank erosion. This is not possible to manage by building dams in the upper catchment. However erosion is not the main issue for the Tully anyhow – fertiliser and pesticide loss and discharge are. This needs to be managed in the lower cropping areas (sugarcane and bananas) and is now starting to be managed there using Reef Rescue funding.
OK Mottsa – with Jon additional comments – he has just told you trials are prisoners of site sand seasons. For you not to understand this shows the total landscape ignoramus that you are.
Try graphing the rainfall for a few Burdekin rainfall stations over the last century. Check a Burdekin soils map.
The tally so far for our resident property rights inactivist and research basher.
(1) upper Tully dam a very silly idea for sediment control. Other issues of nutrients and pesticides also not addressed.
(2) little expansion dam capacity for sediment control available in the Burdekin
(3) no understanding of the spatial variation of management, soils, slopes and rainfall – or existing land degradation status
(4) no substantiation of allegation of bias for the various coral core sediment studies
(5) no appreciation of existing grazing systems and landscape research
0/5
ho hum ….
Yeah, right Luke. So a design feature that has already made provision for an increase from 1.86m megalitres to 8.5m megalitres capacity in BFD is your idea of “little expansion capacity”? Give us a break. It is a 4.57 fold increase.
And Jon has clearly plucked his 80% maximum capture number out of his bum. The expanded BFD would have the capacity to capture 100% of sediment if it captured 100% of an annual event and let the remainder of the system flow to the sea. Similar rates would apply if it merely delayed release for a number of months.
The Lower Bowen catchment may not have a dam site but it would appear that a standard barrier and anicut (canal along the contour) to the BFD may well be possible as distance may be as short as 100km. Hardly new thinking as such tools have been around for more than 2000 years. But this is further evidence of the departmental mindset to find the first excuse to do nothing. Combine that with the upper bowen site and major gains are possible.
And it is one thing to find microscale variations in sediment flows of 100 times but another altogether to find anywhere near this variation on a major catchment or sub-catchment scale. This is because those extreme examples are rarely replicated over an entire catchment and the extreme examples of minimal ground cover never persist right through a wet season. Grass grows when it rains and, having grown, gives ever increasing protection for the soil it grows on. Get used to that one fellas.
And before I would accept such a claim of 100 fold variation I would also need to see the full range of variation for pre-settlement sites at similar micro scale. There is obviously a significant variation in pre-settlement sediment flows due to soil types, slopes and vegetation classes and the duration and intensity of the previous dry season. And these are obviously not uniform all over the catchment.
So your little ploy of allowing less well informed readers (like ministerial advisors) to assume that all the outcomes between factor 1 and factor 100 are the product of farming practices is as false as it is dishonest.
It is for that very reason that I indicated that more than one non-control sites would be needed to validate any inference from coral cores.
And Jons claims re the Tully are not very credible. Even if most erosion takes place on the lower flood plains from drain erosion and stream bank erosion, a large portion of the water volume that produces this is upstream water flowing past. So an increase in the volume being captured would reduce the volume flowing past at peak flow times. And of course, both of you have carefully avoided the fact that the capture of even fresh clean water during a flood event will mean a direct reduction in the amount of coral being killed off by that fresh water.
And both of you are running spin on gully and bank erosion. Most farmers know that major gully and bank erosion takes place in the extreme events. And once the stream or gully cross section has been modified there will be only minimal follow up soil loss until vegetation build up, along with deposition in lower flow years and snags etc produce conditions that demand a change in cross section at the next extreme event.
Most farmers also know that stream bank erosion is actually exacerbated when trees are added to a pastured riparian zone. You could discover this as well if you would just walk along any creek from pasture to trees without your heads in an ideological paper bag.
So here we are, still far from seeing any evidence that would conclusively validate the claims from coral cores that current sediment flows are 10 to 25 times higher than pre-settlement levels.
But the really breathtaking claim was the one that suggested that a rise from 60% capture to 80% capture would be small beer. There is no doubting that cell grazing and avoidance of overgrazing produce reduced sediment flows and faster recovery of fodder reserves. But in a context of major vegetation thickening events, extremely ill-conceived clearing controls, and minimal management of a greatly expanded Kangaroo herd, demanding that graziers further reduce their stocking rates to deliver a public benefit at their sole expense, is worse than ignorant, it is downright predatory.
You just can’t get it through your twisted departmental brains that farmers might be quite willing to reduce grazing pressure on their rangelands if they had reliable water supplies to grow their own fodder reserves to supplement the seasonal gaps. But all you can think of is “gimme, gimme, gimme”.
Grass doesn’t grow without soil. Get used to that one fella.
Low stocking rate vs variable stocking rate may double infiltration on some soils. Get used to that one fella. Little infiltration – more runoff – more erosion.
Gullies and channels are a major source of sediment – maybe half the story. And they are still incising. Get updated mate.
Anyway who says you’re speaking for the grazing industry. They’re supporting and participating in the research. Would you like to abuse them too?
Indeed in an increasingly fussy market – production from a well researched sustainable production system is a selling point.
I see you’ve dropped the Tully dam as a bad idea. At least you’ve learnt something.
So now we have Luke resorting to simplistic drivel. Grass clearly grows on creek banks and riparian zones and demonstrably provides a very effective ground cover. And when such zones are subject to flood flows it is the close cover of grasses and forbs that prevents erosion much better than overhead tree canopy and very sparse understory vegetation.
Exposed roots and bare soil (after all the leaf litter has washed away) in tree covered riparian zones demonstrate why the pre-settlement flows were nowhere near as sediment free as the NRM mafia would have us believe.
This deliberate policy fraud by the NRM mafia has three elements. 1. under statement of the range of sediment loads that took place prior to settlement, 2. overstatement of the current sediment loads in relation to pre-setlement levels, and 3. exclusion of cost effective methods for reducing sediment loads whilst promoting methods that are entirely borne by the landowner.
Most of the industry are on leasehold land and must kow tow to the resident thugs, as serfs have had to do for a thousand years. And surely you are not suggesting that there has not been a substantial element of coercion in Qld leasehold land policy? Besides, there is nothing wrong with researching additional options. The problems start when the research is tainted by the ideology and acquires the status of exclusive gospel.
And which “increasingly fussy market” would that be? Twelve months into the global financial crisis and you still don’t get it do you? You and your mates still think you are in a long, artificial bull market where no-one loses their job and no-one goes hungry.
Economies and governments are like farm ponds. An excess of nutrients will allow the build up of an entire layer of unproductive scum on the top of it that impairs the health of the whole thing. And the only way to fix it is to either dry it out completely or flush it out with a good purge.
And I have not “dropped” the notion of a Dam on the Tully. It still discharges more sediment and more wasted fresh water per hectare than the Burdekin. And if it can make a contribution then it should do so.
What a ripper. So here’s bloke who’s used to the soft life in the idyllic but atypical Byron hinterland with a European notion of hedgerows and quiet streams. Mate are you for real !
Most of the rangeland droughts break in a big deluge – this is when the erosion damage is done. The grass on your banks will be dead – it will be all swept away. Do you think you’re managing a nice little grassed waterway on some quiet English stream. The reality under Mottsian management is that your yaks would have also trashed the stream bank.
Tree roots will be heaps more effective. You have ZERO evidence of anything else in this environment. Of course trees provide other ecological functions unknown to someone such as yourself – i.e. reducing waterhole temperatures, habitat. Waterholes that are being documented as filling in under Mottsian management regimes from your vastly increased soil loss (many many X pre-European).
Still no rebuttal of the coral work. And you haven’t even stepped up to Lewis et al. A multi-trace element coral record of land-use changes in the Burdekin River catchment, NE Australia (link above)
As for “Most of the industry are on leasehold land ” – not the majority of production though eh? More pinkies on the butcher’s scales. Anyway Delbessie would have to be a pretty wussy bit of compliance. Mate even you could make it through the requirements – they’re that weak. Unless of course you’re some landscape raping heathen.
Fussy market – like this one. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,27574,25111319-3102,00.html
So given the Tully forest produces little sediment – you must be going to dam over the sugar and bananas – mate you’ll be popular up north ! You might even win a Darwin award for numb nuttiness.
So now all he can quote is that beacon of truth and accurate reporting, The Courier Mail. Good one boy wonder.
And what an ignorant load of cobblers on the drought breaking on rangelands. Yes it takes a good sized fall before a drought is considered to be broken but such falls are almost always preceded by what are called “promising rain” events which are enough to get pastures growing but not enough to deliver a full moisture profile.
Go to page 54 of the 2006/7 report at http://www.actfr.jcu.edu.au/idc/groups/public/documents/technical_report/jcudev_016590.pdf
And observe how the main event was preceded by a number of small events which would have obviously induced growth in all grass cover. Your little delusional fairy tale about dead grass giving no protection against erosion is exposed as pure bollocks. It is all in your head you sad plodder.
And the table on page 36 of the report makes it very clear that Jon Brodie was also talking through his backside on what he claimed were the average sediment flows. Remember, 2006/7 was 38% above the mean and sediment flows into the dam were only 3200 ml on a water volume of 5.5 million ml, but on 5th March above he said,
“Its difficult to estimate what the average load in the Burdekin River would be now if the Dam wasn’t there but roughly we estimate 1.5 m tonnes from below dam and hence 3 m tonnes from above dam. The delivery from above the dam would then be something like 7 m tonnes (assuming 60% trapping) if the dam wasn’t there. That would give a total load to coast of 8.5 m tonnes without dam.”
Complete bull$hit. The guy has done the multiplication factor twice.
If 3.2 million tonnes went into the dam and only 1.2 million tonnes came out then only a departmental moron could possibly conclude that the outflow from that location, if the dam was not there, could be ANYTHING BUT 3.2 MILLION ML. That is, the same volume that went in at the top.
So note that even in a 38% above mean year the total outflow was 6.14 million tonnes with another 2 million tonnes captured in BFD. So even if this was adjusted on a directly proportionate rate it would only amount to a mean annual discharge to the sea of 4.4 million tonnes.
But it is clear that the rate of sediment flow would be less than proportionate to the 2006/7 year and the rate of capture by the BFD would be higher because of the smaller volume involved. That is unless some sort of departmental bogan was letting the smaller flow volumes go straight through with no delay to allow sediments to settle.
Interestingly, if the 2006/7 dam sediment inflows of 3.2mt are divided by 1.38 we get only 2.3mt and when this is subject to 60% capture we are left with only 0.92mt of dam sediment outflow. A similar adjustment to the un-damed parts of the catchment would produce only 3.58mt. But if we adjust all these flows down by a conservative 10% and increase the capture rate by 10% for the lower volumes then the dam inflow drops to 2.07mt and the post capture outflows drop to 0.7mt while the rest of the catchment flows drop to 3.2mt.
So assuming there is no increase in stream bed deposition in less than average years then mean sediment discharge from the Burdekin mouth is unlikely to be more than 3.9 million tonnes.
It is also worthy of note that the NRM mafia has opted to describe sediment loads in terms of millions of tonnes rather than in the same megalitres as used for the water flows. A volume of 3,900 megalitres of sediment just doesn’t have the same shock value as 3.9 million tonnes.
If Jon Brodie had used the same units of measure he would have realised that with an annual sediment capture of about 1500 megalitres the 1.86 million megalitre dam would take a great deal longer than a century or so before the dam was filled with sediment. In fact, 1,860,000/1500 gives us 1,240 years of sediment capture. Enlarge the dam to 8.5 million megalitres capacity and it will do the job for 57 centuries, give or take a climate change or two.
And on you go about the Tully. The Tully Millstream project was viable on hydro generation alone. As it still would if the greens and the left actually believed in reducing carbon emissions. They clearly do not. Silt capture would be a bonus but the reduction in sediment loss from the lower plains due to less scouring by lower water volumes would be a very useful contribution.
By the way, Luke, sediment loss from bananas on steep slopes is almost as low as from a thick Kikuyu cover. So sediment from bananas on the Tully flood plain would be even less. So your little theory is more imaginary bollocks from the departmentally ignorant.
The Mottsian view of Australia:
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins
Knowledge of episodic rangeland degradation events = zippo !
Sediment loss from bananas on steep slopes is low – hahahahahahaha !
http://www.mssanz.org.au/modsim07/papers/15_s37/ModelingMonitoring_s37_Hateley_.pdf
Anyway I look forward to your bizarre interpretation.
Face it Mottsa – where would you be without us to educate you? And for free too.
I see Lewis et al was too hard for you. http://www.laurentian.ca/NR/rdonlyres/A8819C31-A326-465A-92D0-BA95AA6F1BB3/0/LewisEtAl.pdf
So when presented with hard data that makes it very clear that major events are often preceded by smaller events which restore pasture cover and thereby reduce sediment loss during the major events, the bogan responds with completely off-topic poetry.
And then provides a link to a very sloppy report on sediment modelling as if it were a record of fact.
Cornered rat sqwarks loudly but convinces no-one.
Major events preceded by smaller events that restore cover- bunkum – where’s your evidence?
Modelling ? – huh? – who didn’t understand what they just read ? I know it’s a bit scientific for your level.
LOL !
Ian your calculations as to sediment budgets for the Burdekin were from the 2006/07 data whereas my ‘back of the envelope’ calculations were from an average position based on our long term data. While the 06/07 event was near average in flow (i.e. near 8 m ML) the distribution of flow and sediment flux was not near the average so there is no reason for the details of the sediment budget to match.
We use tonnes of sediment for a number of reasons including that the measurements are done by weighing and expressed in mg/L, many of the water quality guidelines are in mg/L and we have relationships between factors like turbidity and clarity and mg/l (for particular sites). Conversion to sediment volume is difficult as you have to pick a density value to use. Your calculations do not seem to have taken this into account. If we pick a density of 5 kg/L (numbers like 3 and 4 kg/L also possible – need actual studies to find the right conversion) then 3,900,000 tonnes of sediment converts to 750,000,000 L (not 3,900,000,000 L). This supports your position that the BFD will not fill with sediment any time soon. However I thought we agreed about this long ago in this discussion and its irrelevant to our current posts. We (in collaboration with CSIRO) are currently putting together are number of papers which will use the long term data from a number of scales in the Burdekin (some of which is in the technical reports you have been looking at) to clarify the sediment budgets and patterns of sediment delivery.
WRT diverting water and sediment from a weir on lower Bowen River, unfortunately all sites on lower Bowen are about 100m lower than the BFD and you would have to pump water up to the BFD at considerable cost.
As Luke notes there are no significant wins for reducing sediment delivery from the Tully by building more dams on the upper Tully. The Tully Millstream sites you mention are, as I noted, actually on the upper Herbert River – if you built them for hydro as was envisaged they would actually increase water delivery down the Tully (diverted from Herbert) and perhaps only increase stream bank erosion in the lower Tully (perhaps they would then reduce erosion in the lower Herbert? – I think the whole argument is flakey). Any dams actually on the upper Tully in the forest would not trap any significant amount of sediment as the forest does not deliver any large amount of sediment. If reducing sediment delivery from the Tully River was a high priority we would of course target the actual sources (as definitively known from studies in the Tully area) – cane drain erosion, stream bank erosion, plant cane (bare soil) periods of the cane crop cycle, bananas on sloped land, urban development, road construction. In fact fertiliser and pesticide residues are a higher priority than sediment in the Tully region and while some of the sediment issues mentioned above are being addressed they are not a top priority.
So now you are in complete denial on the nature of rain events and their implications for ground cover and sediment loads. As you would, of course, as so much of Qld NRM corporate culture is pure ideology, and twisted ideology at that.
So I say again, as I said above, “Go to page 54 of the 2006/7 report at http://www.actfr.jcu.edu.au/idc/groups/public/documents/technical_report/jcudev_016590.pdf
And observe how the main event was preceded by a number of small events which would have obviously induced growth in all grass cover. Your little delusional fairy tale about dead grass giving no protection against erosion is exposed as pure bollocks. It is all in your head you sad plodder.”
But this time go to the hydrographs, p39 for the Cape, P43 for the Belyando, P47 for the Suttor, P51/52 for the Bowen at Myuna and p33 for the Upper Burdekin. Note that river flows are not a surrogate for rainfall and remember that modest flows usually only start when the soil moisture profile is restored.
From these hydrographs we get very clear evidence of peak flows being preceded by smaller events between 1 month and 2 weeks earlier. The high sediment loads in the Bowen at Myuna reflect the larger size of the initial events where pasture had not been restored in time. But for the majority of the Basin, previous rainfall events have taken place well before the major flow event.
Will have more to say on Tully later.
More Mottsian bunk on “break of drought” effects – defying reality:
“We find that, in the early part of the record, suspended sediment from river floods reached the inner reef area only occasionally, whereas after about 1870–following the beginning of European settlement–a five- to tenfold increase in the delivery of sediments is recorded with the highest fluxes occurring during the drought-breaking floods. We conclude that, since European settlement, land-use practices such as clearing and overstocking have led to major degradation of the semi-arid river catchments, resulting in substantially increased sediment loads entering the inner Great Barrier Reef.” – http://www.citeulike.org/group/344/article/901685
DLWC NSW – “drought-breaking rain can make up 90% of the total soil loss in a 20–30 year cycle ”
Check that Yttrium trend in Lewis et al – erosion ongoing. Has it peaked ? time will tell? lessons learnt – well not for Mottsians. LOL !
Why do we bother !
Thanks, Jon. It seems clear that the 2006/7 event is well above (+38%) average. But I have no problem conceding on the height difference between Bowen and BFD. That does not rule out a sequence of smaller impoundments on the lower river levels.
As I had indicated above, sediment capture in the Tully would only be a small contribution but Luke has manufactured this strawman as an issue as it was his only real chance of ever appearing to win a point.
I am aware of the relevance of density issues in sediment but was uncertain of actual conversion rates and hence did not mention this aspect.
I regard the modelling work on the Tully, as linked in Luke’s post above, as seriously underwhelming. It is clear that a major relevant overlay in this catchment would be the length and slope of unsealed roads. If the relationship between unsealed road sediment and general clearfall timber harvest area sediment flows is in the order of 100 fold in mild Victorian rainfall, as demonstrated by Vertessy et al, then the variance would be even higher in Tully.
But even when using the low Victorian multiples, a 100 metre length of unsealed road that is 5 metres wide would deliver as much sediment as a clearfall harvest of the adjoining 5 hectares. And the practice of allocating council road sediment loads to the adjoining land use, as was done in this case, is more than a bit suss.
The former Cardwell Shire had 550 km of council roads with 140km of state roads (presumably sealed). So an assumed unsealed road length (not including private ones) of 350km would deliver the sediment equivalent of 3,500 hectares of clearfall harvest. I note that the total area of Bananas is only about 5,000 ha.
The research has not got anywhere near close enough to the problem to properly identify priorities. The use of such indeterminant terminology as describing a catchment as “predominantly” cane or some other land use is well short of ideal. And the variance between the monitored results and the modelled outcomes highlights this point.
Having said that, it must be said that Banana growing in Tully is very much removed from the way it was done by my family and neighbours in the 60′s and 70′s. In Tully the plantations are on gentle slopes and tractors are used between rows which does have major implications for compaction, infiltration and runoff.
NSW Bananas, on the other hand, were, and still are, grown on steeper slopes but with blanket trash retention, zero compaction beyond foot pressure and longer rotations between replanting. It was and remains less efficient than NQ style Banana growing but impacts were also much lower, at least in plantations under our control. Those with a penchant for sustainable farming practices should remember that next time they have a choice between NQ and southern Bananas.
Meanwhile, back in the Burdekin, if ever there was a catchment where the widespread on-farm use of “water spreading” should be encouraged, it is the Bowen. Yet, thanks to more of that famed enlightened governance in Qld, this practice, along with many other forms of on-farm water management, is subject to blanket moratorium.
By “water spreading”, I refer to the practice of installing a sequence of low bunds along the contour with breaks at every second end so that the overland flow of water must flow back and forth in much the same way as a fish ladder. This substantially reduces the speed of runoff while extending the distance it must travel. And it allows increased infiltration. It reproduces the classic dry paddock and adjoining wet paddock on a linear and micro scale. And it can be selectively applied to a slope by the use of side gates, at intervals, that divert flows back into the nearest drainage line.
This technology is particularly useful in catchments with large storage capacities which can maintain normal seasonal stream flows while compensating for reduced flows from the portion of the catchment subject to spreading.
In the Bowen catchment in 2006/7 a mere 940,000 megalitres of flow carried 2,240,000 tonnes of sediment, or 36% of total basin discharge. Water spreading, involving 2 megalitres per hectare (1 of flow and 1 of infiltration), over an area of only 2350km2, would have halved the initial flood peak by delaying 25% of it and absorbing another 25%. It would also have halved total sediment flow, either preventing 1,120,000 tonnes of sediment loss or re-spreading it back over the subject land. The lower flood peak would also have reduced chanel and bank erosion downstream.
And the works would pay for themselves with increased and extended fodder supplies and better utilisation due to improved dispersal of watering points. The only impediments are the lumps of wood between the Premier and Minister’s ears.
You’re loopy on the Tully sediment story mate. The numbers are MEASURED not modelled dofus.
Your whole raison d’etre for dam construction is bullshit. Note well dear lurkers !
“The use of such indeterminant terminology as describing a catchment as “predominantly” cane or some other land use is well short of ideal.” – more crap – the land use mapping is quite precise.
If you had noticed the Hateley et al research through clever chemistry and statistical techniques projects back the source of sediments as one outcome. All that passed over your Intel 8086 processor.
And now the refuge of snake oil merchants – Motty is flogging the old keyline scheme. My oh my.
Will start a few more erosion gullies. We’ll be up to 30x sediment soon enough.
The important thing is that while our resident inactivist bays at the moon and see conspiracies behind each bush, real research by scientists of good faith on real producers’s properties is showing the way forward.
That path is going with the environment and the resource base – not terraforming it and damming it into a Mottsian theme park.
http://www.mla.com.au/TopicHierarchy/IndustryPrograms/NorthernBeef/Wambiana+project.htm
At the end of ten years the results showed that good pasture management through moderate stocking rates delivers a raft of triple bottom line benefits. Relative to the commonly used higher stocking rates throughout the industry, the moderate stocking rate increased accumulated cash surplus by $9,000 per 100 hectares after ten years. Animals were on average 50-70 kg heavier, with less year-to-year liveweight variability, and produced higher quality carcases that received approximately 20c/kg more at sale. While liveweight grain per hectare was lower there was no need for drought feeding.
Under heavy stocking rates there was a 30 per cent decline in carrying capacity, a three-to four fold decline in cover of palatable, perennial pasture species and an increased frequency and intensity of runoff with increased nutrient loss.
So the dopey departmental gollum is unable to distinguish between Keyline and water spreading and cannot comprehend that actions are possible that will produce a structural improvement in long term carrying capacity.
Worse still is his mindset that insists that there can only be one option in grazing management. No-one will contest that the rate of fodder utilisation must be matched to long term fodder production. It is, after all, what Kidman was doing a century ago. But to then argue that any option that seeks to go beyond the existing climate parameters and improve underlying capacity is tantamount to rejection of the fundamentals is the mindset of the ideologue.
And the whole issue of long term carrying capacity is rendered void if the public’s grossly expanded Kangaroo herd remains on site, to continue grazing, long after the farmers herd has been sold or is being hand fed.
The NRM mafia has gone to considerable lengths to understate the impact of Kangaroo grazing but they cannot escape three essential facts;
1 The Kangaroo herd is much more than ten times greater than it was pre-settlement, and
2 It is not subject to anywhere near the stock reduction measures that graziers apply to their own herds as drought hits, and
3 They are free to move from property to property so any grazier who might have carried less cattle to preserve ground cover, or who destocked early for the same reason, will have an enlarged ‘Roo population that inflicts critical damage to his pasture anyway.
The research that has attempted to downplay the impact of Kangaroo grazing on the landscape has conspicuously remained within the bounds of generalisation. It has not dealt with any specifics in respect of what all these animals are doing to the landscape AFTER the sheep and cattle have been de-stocked.
After destocking, the public’s Kangaroo herd accounts for almost 100% of grazing pressure at the time when the landscape is least able to deal with it.
Everyone but a departmental goon can understand the need to adopt as many useful options as are available. Water spreading was trialed at Barcoorah, and with the assistance of federal funding. It demonstrated a substantial, cost effective, increase in long term carrying capacity.
It is not an option that should be promoted in a catchment that has already been over allocated as it would have a significant impact on flow regimes. But the Bowen, among many other Queensland catchments, is seriously under utilised. Water spreading, of itself, in the Bowen catchment will substantially reduce sediment loads. And it will also increase long term carrying capacity in a way that will reduce sediment loads further. That is, provided it is implemented by people who are not connected to the current malevolent and predatory regime.
If we were not governed, and administered, by such lilliputan morons, they might realise that compliance with a properly determined and substantiated new long term carrying capacity equation would be readily accepted if it were incorporated as a condition under the development approval for a water spreading project. It would represent the sharing of the benefits of capital expansion rather than the taxing of a reduced capital.
But these thugs, to their shame, merely perceive a carrot as a stick that is too short and soft to hit anyone with.
Thought you would have stayed off roos after being cleaned up on that last time.
What roo herd in the Burdekin? More fanciful out of touch distractions.
“No-one will contest that the rate of fodder utilisation must be matched to long term fodder production.”
ho ho ho !! Yea like fun. There wouldn’t be any issues if this was the case.
But as always we’ve given up our time to educate you on modern research. At no cost.
We can’t have our property rights dudes wandering around the country spruiking utter rot. Thanks to our efforts you now won’t be caught out not knowing that the Tully forest produces little sediment.
Nice try, but the Tully paper is nothing more than a comparison between some selected sample points and a model. The sampling was no-where near detailed enough to produce valid data. And the variances between reality and the model remain very significant, ie, up to five fold, in both directions. I note that you declined to comment on the sediment load from roads but was content to allocate the sediment from an unpaved council road to the land use it goes past, not the land use the road actually services, or the urban and non-urban people who use that road.
And not a word on water spreading even though the research had full NHT funding. Oh, of course, you claim that “no farmer would want to see his farm under water”. So why was it subjected to the moratorium then if no-one wanted to do it?
And now you are suggesting that the range of the Eastern Grey Kangaroo and the Common Wallaroo does not extend to the Burdekin? As I said above, the research on the impact of ‘Roos remained at purely generalised level, with loaded assumptions as to animal size and fodder consumption. More importantly, it failed to consider ‘Roos impact on fodder when they are the only animals left in the paddock, ie after the stock have been sold or are being hand fed.
The Minister’s animals are still ripping away at the remnants of pasture long after the farmer has concluded there was nothing left to eat. And you then blame the farmer for over-grazing.
Lets face it, Luke, you are nothing more than a fully paid departmental spin meister.
Bunk – sampling from the MAIN waterway is perfectly adequate. Any forest roads are in the forest figure. It’s still a very low number. The modelling is simply irrelevant in this context.
Go on put up the roo grazing pressure for the Burdekin. Don’t bluff.
The grazing trial data are all there. Pages upon pages of detailed research. Hey weren’t you going to tell us where all that research was wrong? ROTFL ! The sequence of overgrazing in the Burdekin is WELL documented and you have made the most pitiful attempt I have ever seen trying to bulldust your way out of it.
Face it – real industry has ignored you, innovated, and moved on.
And still he flogs the departmental spin while ignoring the fact that the research “failed to consider ‘Roos impact on fodder when they are the only animals left in the paddock, ie after the stock have been sold or are being hand fed”. That is, when pasture is least able to deal with any grazing.
Sampling from the main waterway is totally inadequate for the very good reason that almost every sub-catchment has a transect from agriculture on the river flats to forest on the slopes. And the slopes, of course, have differing slopes, and consequently will have differing sediment flows. But at least you have demonstrated how NRM “science” is content to only inquire as far as is needed to confirm the official position.
And once again, you have completely sidestepped the fact that in un-damed catchments like the Bowen, major reductions in sediment flows, and major increases in stocking capacity, can be achieved by on-farm water spreading. But it is official NRM corporate culture to reject any option that might produce an environmental benefit while also benefiting farmers.
Readers can see for themselves as they read back over the thread above how you have provided minimal substance while exercising a rather ordinary under-graduate sneer on behalf of your political masters.