While the Murray River is flowing strongly despite the drought, many of its tributaries are drying up.
Yesterday I visited the Wakool River with Wakool Landholders Association Chairman John Lolicato.
He showed me a spot downstream of Gee Gee bridge where there is still water in deep holes. A bit upstream the river has been reduced to billabongs and further upstream in Possum forest some of the billabongs have dried up.
Downstream of Gee Gee bridge
A billabong that was Wakool river
John has moved some Murray Cod from drying billabongs to larger water holes.
John looking for some water and stranded fish
Also yesterday, the NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water Phil Koperberg announced that a pulse of water would be released into the Wakool River to provide stock and domestic water and environmental benefits.
Mr Koperberg acknowledged that the Wakool River had not had flows for months due to the severe and extended drought.
“The diversion of water into these systems will provide landholders with access to stock and domestic water for the first time in months, help improve water quality and provide significant environmental benefits to stressed populations of native fish and other aquatic species,” he said.
“The water cannot be used for irrigation and additional deliveries for irrigation are not viable as they would exacerbate additional water losses that cannot be supported.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer
you have already been told, it’s more or less just a very long dam at the moment.
Of interest in the ongoing debate of is it or isn’t there a climate change influence on our wataer supplies and rivers, CSIRO have just today finished a symposium on the “Hydrological Consequences of Climate Change”.
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/phaw.pdf
Mottsa might enjoy some of the land use stuff therein.
Malcolm, John and Sid be warned – viewing may cause anaphylactic shock.
Not that I agree with all of it mind you. CSIRO need to weed out their modelling ensemble much further. (IMO of course)
The CSIRO’s Mike Raupach says scientists should reassess the use of El Nino as a forecasting tool because climate change seems to be altering the way weather processes like El Nino work.
Dr Raupach says the link between the phenomenon and rainfall is not as strong as it once was.
“The leverage that El Nino exerts on Australia is principally through its La Nina phase, principally through the flood phase of the El Nino cycle,” he said.
“The fact that we’ve seen no strong La Ninas over last 10 years means that in some respects El Nino has not completely but almost, lost its lock on Australia’s water balance.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2093237.htm?section=justin
Dunno – debatable. Depends if you want to be a dirty alarmist or a filthy denialist doesn’t it? 🙂
It is certainly going on for a bit Jen.
Not surprised by this one, interesting how others see this country.
I’ve been thinking for a long time (after a few crossings) the Wakool River was only an irrigation ditch that robber the Murray proper, cheap water transfer if you can get it hey.
I suspected water was diverted down this ancient course by locks on the mainstream way back. Main reason for that assumption was it was mostly flowing too fast to fish even though the country from here to Adelaide was dry even in the good years.
Somebody correct me on natural floods in the Wakool region, water diversions and what is area’s agricultural history.
SJT,
Not sure what you mean by just “a long dam”?
Last time I looked – this afternoon – the Murray River was flowing quite strongly.
While the Wakool – well there are a few deep holes, some billabongs and some dry river bed.
Bunyip 2,
The Wakool River was the original Murray River channel about 30,000 years ago.
Not sure what you mean by irrigation ditch!
And at the moment the Murray is full of water from upstream dams while there has been no allocation for the Wakool.
Jennifer : Since there are no towns along the irrigation ditch (Wakool River) I think we can refer to the announcements by John Howard & Co, Turnbull and a few others after their desperate takeover offer (drought fixing) 10 billion etc for the current predicament fish trapped between pot holes and so on.
Climate change has nothing to do with it hey
The Wakool is actually an anabranch of the Edward which in turn is an anabranch of the Murray. Both are part of an extensive ancient floodplain criss-crossed by creeks, runners and abandoned river beds.
After the Cadell Tilt uplift (maybe 15,000 years ago) this system took all the Murray’s water until in comparatively recent times (some say less than 600 years ago)the Murray cut a new channel south to join the Goulburn.
The Edward has a regulator where it leaves the Murray. Until that was put in place (not sure how long ago but less than 50 years) the Edward-Wakool system ran high when the Murray was in flood and low when there was a drought.
The regulator by the way is to reduce summer flooding of the Millewa, Gulpa Island and Werrai river red gum forests which can be fatal to the trees and to assist in distribution of irrigation water.
The Wakool is probably similar today to the 1914 drought when the Murray officially stopped running near Swan Hill, or in 1923 when it almost did.
Since the late 1930s dams and irrigators have ensured high summer flows until the water started to run out.
It’s as well to remember that much of the water that is keeping the Murray flowing at the moment belongs to South Australia where a good deal of it will finish up in the huge evaporation pond they call Lake Alexandrina which, until the Goolwa barrages were built to keep it full of fresh water, was tidal.
Oh and just in case anyone thinks this is all down to AGW, the first white settler in the region, Henry Lewes, wrote that there were trees growing in the bed of the Wakool when he arrived in 1842. He knew they would have drowned had the river been flowing since they had appeared and reckoned from the size of them the drought had been of at least nine years duration. Another drought in the 1870s stranded paddle steamers up the Darling for several years.
It’s all happened before and on the present scale.
David: I do remember that SOME water flowing east of the Divide belongs to SA and they can do with it what ever they like including topping up Adelaide with a fair share of the salt.
The issue of Lake Alexandrina and the Coorong has been discussed at length on Jens blog but I’m still intrigued by all the little bits and pieces that make up our MDB.
My interest started with discovering candle-bark gums that are the gap fillers between river reds and snow gums. Candelbark woodlands are highly suited to most of that dry country above the flood plain but few discuss their preservation. It’s brittle wood.
I suspect a HUGE flood way back joined the Murray and the Goulburn rivers at their present junction and cut off the Edwards from all but overflow above fresh silt barriers however man’s recent attempts to overcome the meanderings between floods are just as exciting given all the locks and dams. It gave me a reason to postpone the building of the Mitta Mitta project.
What we need now David is a fresh book on the subject
Bunyip 2
You may be right about a huge flood. That is in accord with local aboriginal oral tradition which claims they released the river by digging through a sandhill.
Quite a labour of love with pointy sticks but feasible given that a small breach in a levee often does the same. There IS a large sandhill that meets the Murray upstream from the Goulburn.
I reckon it was a lot wetter back then. Old maps from the 1850s show waterholes out on the plains where there are no waterholes now.
Having said that, it was also very hot and dry at times.
Henry Lewes (see above) said the higher (ie above floodplain)country around the Moira lakes was like a desert when he arrived. Another squatter, William Brodribb said everything west of the Sydney-Melbourne track was regarded as desert.
Yet another squatter, Peter Stuckey, following the Murrumbidgee from Gundagai to the Yanco Creek in 1835 found similar conditions.
But there were some monster floods right across the Riverina in between the dry periods. Cobb & Co had real problems in the 1870s getting the mails through north of Hay.
David: Re great floods, it seems anything is also possible inland between showers. I recall the news of Donald Campbell achieving 400+ mph in his “Bluebird” at Lake Eyre 1964.
During the 1990’s I spent a long time considering long haul microwave links over trunk routes and wondering about dropouts due to moisture and salt. We can count on much of it being “dry”. Tearaway floods leave their mark all the same. What drove them? There is a few clues upstream on the Goulburn River, the “Breakaway” in the Archerton – Alexandria area.
I had some fun finding www references, but what a useful mapping tool this was zoomed right in (recomended). Back in the 60’s we had Army style maps to find all the bits and pieces (and fish!).
http://nremap-sc.nre.vic.gov.au/MapShare.v2/imf.jsp?site=water
Up here, we can ask another question; was that event triggered by the Rubicon or the Archerton Rivers?
i want river information and photo please you send my email id
I LOVE the murray river, but in all my time i’ve never seen it dryed up, near wakool on the bend, my family and i went there some time ago and it was terrible, almost all dried up