There is nothing straight forward or logical about how water is allocated for irrigation in Australia. And every scheme and catchment has its own historical idiosyncrasies.
I am always amazed when I read that irrigators are paying for water they aren’t getting when there is a drought. Payment for a percentage of an allocation even if the dam is dry is a condition of many irrigation licenses.
Just yesterday ABC Online reported that:
“The NSW Government is under pressure to waive fixed water charges for Lachlan Valley irrigators.
Producers have started receiving bills for the 2004/5 financial year, despite not having a water allocation during that period.
Is it possible that some south east Queensland irrigators could one day have to pay for no water, because it has been sold to a power station?
A reader of this blog, Hasbeen, was extremely frustrated last week after attending the Community Reference Panel launch of the Logan Basin Draft Water Resource Plan. Logan is just south of Brisbane in south east Queensland, Australia.
Draft plans and reference panels are part of the jargon and process of resource planning in Australia. It has been my observation that they often reflect government’s commitment to consult, while its policy officers dabble in central planning.
I have edited the following note from Hasbeen, written after he attended that meeting:
“What a joke. We got over an hour of an ‘Environmental Investigations Report’ which said it is more important that the river is a wildlife corridor, than we do anything to reduce/prevent erosion and the invertebrates in the sand are much more important than the people who live, and work, on the river.
Then the real crunch, what it means to the people who have lived on, and depended on the river for much of their lives.
For irrigators on supplemented streams there will be not much change. They will still pay for their water allocation, whether or not ther is water. But there is a likelihood that this water will also be sold to higher payers, e.g. power stations, in future.
For those on unsupplemented streams, where not one cent of taxpayer funds has been spent, the story is bad. These people are on area licenses, dictating that they may irrigate so many hectares. These are to be converted to volume licences, but at a very low rate, varying between 4 and 4.5 ML/ha.
Department of Primary Industry figures state that it takes 5.6 ML/ha per year to maintain pasture grass, about the lowest user of irrigation. For dairy farmers it takes 6 ML/ha to produce 4 months of winter rye grass, then a similar amount to run summer feed. Lucerne growers could not survive on this allocation, and neither could small crops growers.
We were told this conversion figure was chosen after a survey of irrigators, but none of the community reference panel had been surveyed.
To make matters worse, a volumetric cap will be put on water harvesting. Harvesting is only allowed when the river is in ‘fresh’, and hundreds of megaliters per day is rushing out to sea.
To tell a farmer that he must watch a river, 30 meters wide, and 6 meters deep rush past his pump, with out taking any is stupid. When that water will be in Morton Bay in 6 hours, it’s criminal.
One of the water resource people I spoke to did not appear to understand our little river, it seemed as if we were talking about two different things.
Their thinking, and I suppose, training relates to our long, slow, inland rivers, where water can take weeks to meander down stream. He found it almost impossible to believe that if we all pumped, with all our pumps, we could not make a dent in the flow of our river during a fresh.
He would not believe that a rain drop, from our head water, would be in Morton Bay in 24 hours.
After EIGHT years of community input we have got a total ‘stuff up’.
None of the pain this plan will impose on our community will, or can, have any benefit for anyone. We will pay for our water, even if there isn’t any, and probably go broke doing it.
How can they get it so wrong, unless there is a hidden agenda, and this plan is to be used as a basis for other plans, which can advantage urban water supply.”
End of note from Hasbeen.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I was wondering why there was no response to this article. Were readers too shocked to respond. I was.
First, a resource is allocated, at a reduced rate, and payment required for that allocation. BUT if another user comes along and pays more, the original user may can have his allocation confiscated, but still have to pay for it. That is double dipping. There are nastier names for such practices.
If ordinary people or businesses tried this on, they would be called crooks. Policy makers and consultants, it would seem, are above such criticism.
Oh yes, and the consultation game is played right across Australia. On one occasion I was asked to become part of a ‘focus group’. We were workshopped (verb intended) for opinions, which, I feel, were then cherry-picked.
It is clear that rural water can never be equitably allocated by an urban government because they will always see the rural use as nothing more than a buffer for their own use. So when times get tought, we’ll just put another farmer out of business.
The urban community is simply incapable of comprehending that fresh water that flows into sea water is wasted water. It is as if their capacity to understand water is limited to what goes in their mouth, over their body or out their nether regions.
And to my knowledge there are no species that are specifically adapted to brackish water. Many species pass from fresh to salt and back again during their life cycle so there is no actual need to maintain a transitional brackish ecosystem because it moves up and down stream depending on season and tide.
Consequently, there appears to be no ecological reason why normal season flows and additional seasonal flushes, cannot be captured at the tide mark and pumped back up the valley for irrigation use.
There is clearly a need for a seasonal flush to maintain life cycles of shrimp etc but any second, third or even tenth flush in a single wet season is pretty well wasted. It should be captured anywhere it can.
Furthermore, because rivers meander so much, the distance that water would be pumped in a straight line is generally only 40% of the river length to the same point. Combine this with greater speed from pumping and the required cross section of pipe is only a fraction of the cross section of the river.
One can only conclude that the farming community of Australia is victim of a comprehensive intellectual failure, as well as a legal and political failure. Water + intellect = life and rural Australia is being denied both.
Ian Mott says: “The urban community is simply incapable of comprehending that fresh water that flows into sea water is wasted water. It is as if their capacity to understand water is limited to what goes in their mouth, over their body or out their nether regions.”
Again, why the insults? Have you considered anger management classes?
I think you will find that where a river has discharged into the sea for eons the adjacent marine environment is adapted to it and benefits from it. Let Google Scholar be your guide.
When you say that no species is adapted to a brackish environment you forget the Coornong at the SA mouth of the Murray River where fish species have become EXTINCT due to disrupted flows.
Millions of dollars have to be spent dredging Lakes Entrance because the Government has stolen a large chunk of the natural flow.
It may be the case that more water could be diverted inland withiout any great problem but let’s not be simplistic about it. An EES should always precede such a scheme.
There you are Ian, no apology for pinching rural water for urban use, but you have ruffled some feathers by complaining about it.
The local council was crowing about their planning acumen, when they announced that they had increased their reserved allocation, by
1700ML per year, from the Logan, to cover development requirements for water, until 2050.
No EES required, it’ll come off the farmers. The state government liked it to, they get paid for that unused allocation, from next year, & can still sell it to the power station.
But watch out if the farmers want some of it back, in the harvesting they have always done.
That will need 25 academics, working for 5 years on EES’s before that can happen.
It realy doesn’t matter much. As these old dairy farmers die out, no one is going to be stupid enough to try to produce milk for a living. Our urban neighbors will no longer be able to come out here, & show the kids that milk comes from a cow, not a carton.
No the whole bloody lot of them, kids, & parents, will know that it comes in a big ship, from over the water.
Hasbeen
Too true, Hasbeen. And Mr Munn, there was no anger in my statement, only resignation.
And as for the Coorong, it is worth noting that the Barage was put in at the turn of last century and since that time all of Lake Alexandrina has become a brackish freshwater evaporation pan where once was a tidal estury. The problem for the species there is that they no longer get the tidal flush they used to get from the larger lake. It used to be tidal at Morgan. So for the past century we have had about a million MgL of fresh water evaporation each year from a place that used to evaporate salt water. And all for a capital city that has never used the water anyway, preferring to get it further up stream.
The net result is that Adelaide wastes more water from pointless evaporation than it actually gets through the tap.
And to top it all off, some sort of Wentworth Group nutters have been including Lake Alexandrina as one of the places that needs increased fresh water flooding to “restore” natural ecological values!
If they really wanted to restore ecological values they would take away the barage altogether so it can get the tidal flushes it used to have and keep the fresh water up stream where it can at least produce a crop before it evaporates. And then we can look at the species in the Coorong to see how they adjust to the restored natural conditions.
Hi Jen,
I was on the committee for water management planning for the [names deleted at request of Anon if I posted this] Creeks. And the output (I think it’s now a water management plan but I’m apparently off the official list of what’s going) includes modelling of prior and post management plan water use.
In my training in modelling and computer simulation you were supposed to have at least one data set for validation and a separate one for verification (minimum, preferably multiples for each but the real world gets in the way).
For these streams there is ONE long term gauging station on one stream (the [name deleted] weir). I got this out of DNR personnel at the last meeting I attended at [name deleted], so there are witnesses. And how this qualifies as world’s best science is an answer that I await with interest from the minister.
from Anon.
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Ones farmer buys one thay owen to pull out of shead when dam water is low. there light weight portable and will contain rain to full existing dams catch it dont watch it turn to dust.only use when rain is forcasted satalight images.designs are tuff built with to existing aust products ive just put them together with my designs. 2to3 weeks to make but will have pree stock in the future two sizes 56sqm=28000 leters full 182sqm=91000 leters full pull apart and be fold to store Thank you michael
please see up dated website im ready to go have patent ready to manufacture www,waterharvestingraincatching.bigpondhosting.com
Ones farmer buys one thay owen to pull out of shead when dam water is low. there light weight portable and will contain rain to full existing dams catch it dont watch it turn to dust.only use when rain is forcasted satalight images.designs are tuff built with to existing aust products ive just put them together with my designs. 2to3 weeks to make but will have pree stock in the future two sizes 56sqm=28000 leters full 182sqm=91000 leters full pull apart and be fold to store Thank you michael
Hello
. I’m trying to help farmers.And all. I have good practicable ideas and designs I have ready to go now portable dams from 40.000 letter up 100.000 letters 40.000 letter rain catchers from [$3800] portable dams with cover to stop water evaporation .
Please help me help farmers.
10.000Lt catchers for back yards thay catch roof run off and catch there Owen area.8meters by
2meters by 600mm deep.=10.000lts $1700. Better then rain tanks thay catch more.
My designs are tuff and safe. Ways to keep up with climate changes with rain bands that have speed up.
We can have fenced off part of car park at sports fields or out side field to have water to water grass. Rain we will all ways have we have to keep up with it.Contain it.Not watch it go to wast.
Have at schools for there sports fields. Hanging rain catchers for trees drip feed. and can be man filled
to save on water wastage.thrown soaking. Fill every 4weeks not water every second day. Save on man power. Fuel . and most in portent save water no wast.
It is not counselling or hand outs farmers want. Farmers want help to stay on the land by having feed and[ [water] for their stock .They want to have meat on their plates other then chicken. [Water]And essential to life.Water Harvesting Rain Catching..
Michael Blundell. 0433645015 Queanbeyan
www. waterharvestingraincatching. bigpondhosting. com
Wanting help too brake through governments red tape all thay care about is how too tax free water
rain
Wanting to bring foward my products to help in third world.
Im pleeding for help to help farmers and all with water.
To make the most of what rain we do get.
Trying to gain support. to get through to government.. And get in and help?
Hello
. I’m trying to help farmers.And all. I have good practicable ideas and designs I have ready to go now portable dams from 40.000 litres up 500.000 litres 40.000 litres rain catchers from [$3800] portable dams with cover to stop water evaporation .
Please help me help farmers and all.
10.000Lt catchers for back yards thay catch roof run off and catch there Owen area.8meters by
2meters by 600mm deep.=10.000lts [$1700]. Better then rain tanks thay catch more.
My designs are tuff and safe. Ways to keep up with climate changes with rain bands that have speed up.
We can have fenced off part of car park at sports fields or out side field to have water to water grass. Rain we will all ways have we have to keep up with it.Contain it.Not watch it go to wast.
Have at schools for there sports fields. Hanging rain catchers for trees drip feed. and can be man filled
to save on water wastage.thrown soaking. Fill every 4weeks not water every second day. Save on man power. Fuel . and most in portent save water no wast.
It is not counselling or hand outs farmers want. Farmers want help to stay on the land by having feed and[ [water] for their stock .We all want to have meat on their plates other then chicken. [Water]And essential to life.Water Harvesting Rain Catching..
Michael Blundell. 0433645015 Queanbeyan
http://www.waterharvestingraincatching.bigpondhosting.com
Wanting to run in forem
Please
With my designs and ideas with your backing we can help farmers and all to live with clement changes that are here too stay.
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With modern proven new materials
.
With your backing .
All can be do`n NOW
Help me help farmers.
Not through consoling or hand outs .
Though getting in and suppling away to gain the upper hand.
Water for stock. Water for stock feed
.
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With floating cover to stop evaporation.
And sola powered pump to circulate water to stop mosquitos _
breeding and water contamination accruing.
It`s not rocket scenes But a dam good way to help farmers [NOW]
I’m currently doing a government approved 6 week course.
With S.E.T.S
NEIS New Enterprise Incentive Scheme.
All is going well I’m in my 5 week.
My business Registration number is BN98277226.
I`m on my Owen trying to help .
I have four children .
I’m wanting too do far more then i can with what finance i do have.
Please help me help farmers .
water Harvesting Rain Catching.
http://www.waterharvestingraincatching.bigpondhosting.com
Michael Blundell
0433645015
3 Eugenia ST Queanbeyan
NSW 2620