There is a blog at www.fairwateruse.com.au with an article entitled ‘Dr Jennifer Marohasy: what is her precise agenda?’ suggesting my recent columns in The Land on the River Murray, in particular the situation in South Australia, are agenda driven. The fair-water blog doesn’t explain what my agenda is, and doesn’t allow comments, so I thought I might respond here.
Farmers along the lower reaches of the River Murray are doing it tough. There have been very low inflows for some years now and even with all the water sent down from the Hume and Darmouth Dam the lower lakes are starting to dry up creating significant salinity and acid sulfate soil problems.
The acid sulfate soil problem could be easily overcome by opening the barrages at the very bottom of the lake system and letting in some sea water.
But as the article at the fair-water blog explains the South Australian want to keep their system fresh:
“Blanchetown, some 270 kilometres from the Murray mouth, is currently around 500mm below sea level. If the Goolwa barrages were opened as she suggests, water would certainly flow, but in the opposite direction to that expected by Dr Marohasy, turning the entire length of Murray from Blanchetown to the mouth into an inlet of the Southern Ocean.
Fair Water Use (Australia) doubts whether many Australians would view this as a “good news” story.
We are not sure how Dr Marohasy is able to engage in finger-pointing whilst her head is so deeply embedded in the sand (or should that be acidic mud). The plight of the Murray-Darling is a result of over-exploitation of the entire basin; the solution must therefore involve bold decisions being taken which will have long-term consequences for all users of the river system, from the cotton plantations in the north to the dairy farms and wineries of the south.”
I actually think it would be a good news story in metropolitan Australia if the barrages were opened and salt water flooded in all the way to Blanchetown and a bit beyond. It would be good new for the environment which hasn’t experienced seawater in that stretch of the river for perhaps 120 years.
The South Australians like to pretend that the lower lakes were always fresh, but they weren’t. The freshwater allocations enabling farming in the region could never be guaranteed.
Right now through the National Water Initiative there is a focus on buying back water allocations from the central Murray Valley. But the focus should perhaps be on the lower Murray.
The lower Murray has less fertile soils, and is part of a much less sustainable system – a system which under natural conditions would be periodically estaurine and unsuitable for conventional farming.
But the South Australians often have politics on their side, most recently in the form of federal environment Water and Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
As Minister for Climate Change and Water as well as a Senator for SA, Penny Wong has released a number of public statements on the Murray which are relevant including a map showing the location of Water purchases see http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2008/pubs/mr20080523-att.pdf
She also announced at the start of this month the $6 million pumping of water from Lake Alexandrina in the lower River Murray to “reduce the risk of acidification and environmental damage at Lake Albert”.
The importance of the Murray Darling river system seems to me that we need the input of many minds and those making a contribution to the debate should be welcomed and not portrayed as “her head is so deeply embedded in the sand (or should that be acidic mud)”
Cinders,
Thanks for correcting me regarding the title of the minister!
And I’ve written on the Acid Sulfate Soil issue here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/articles152.html
I wonder if the South Aussies have compared notes with us Dutch about dealing with reclaimed lands……….
against the main post is a google advert for House boats on the Murray, click on the link (generating revenue for this site) and there is a link to current pictures of the Murray.
You can also get pictures from http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/
Whilst they say a picture can tell a thousand words, clearly comparing the two sets of pictures tell two completely different stories of the Murray’s water flows.
A particular point that South Australians in particular seem to overlook is that from the “cotton plantations in the north” and “dairy farms and wineries in the south” we all are affected by drought. There hasn’t been water anywhere, and to expect that the lakes wouldn’t dry out under such circumstances(with barrages in place) is ridiculous.
SA has been insulated from drought for so long they’ve forgotten what it feels like. Trust me I don’t wish low allocations upon anyone, but to blame upstream irrigators many of whom have had an allocation averaging approx 10% for the last 6 years is unfair.
http://blog.litfuse.com.au/2008/04/13/future-of-birds-in-the-coorong/
Take a look at rice production figures for the last couple of years.
An exception does exist with farms on the Darling itself receiving their first significant flows for years, and I believe Menindee lakes has a few hundred Gl in storage, ready to evaporate over the coming months.
I have to admit when I proposed opening the barrages here last year, I really didn’t expect another record low inflow year in the Murray.
I just can’t get over the gall of these south Australians. They accept the fact that “Blanchetown, some 270km from the Murray mouth is (get this) ‘currently’ 500mm below sea level, but continue to claim that their problems with salinity are caused by land clearing up stream (which increases flow) and excessive allocations, up stream, that have reduced flows.
It seems all the blame lies either “in the north” or “in the south” which is local code for ‘to the east of us’. They would have us believe that their problems have many fathers while their assets are of undisputed parentage.
And one must ask, was there ever a time in recent history when Blanchetown was not 500mm below sea level? Was there ever a time when the natural state of Blanchetown was not as part of “an inlet of the Southern Ocean”?
Absent the locally made salinity problems in the lower Murray and the entire system doesn’t look too bad at all.
The big question is whether the ALP MPs from the other MDB states will let Wong continue with this serious misrepresentation to the policy process. This is not just a vested interest, it is more akin to a conflict of interest on her part. And she should request that responsibility for water be taken out of her portfolio.
http://narrung.blogspot.com/2008/05/lake-alberts-bund-update.html
http://narrung.blogspot.com/2008/05/narrung-and-lake-alberts-bund.html
this is a great blog with great pics and information about the building of the bund wall across Lake Albert
$6 million for a bund wall and 4 x 24/7 pumps to do what nature and her tides would do for free. What a disgrace. And it is everyone’s fault but the clowns who insist on keeping the barrage.
But some parts of this story don’t stack up. My understanding is that the normal level of Lake Alexandrina is about 600mm above AHD, yet we have poeple claiming that Blanchetown is 500mm below AHD. But if that was the case then Blanchtown would normally be 1100mm under water. So what is the real story?
WHOA….. So let me get this right….. The Murry river bed at Blanchtown is half a meter below sealevel….?
In that case as far as I am concerned it is an Estuary up to that point and not a river.
There probably should not be barrages in place during no flow periods… That would ensure the normality of the system…. Probably would be less acidification with fresh seawater swishing in and out with the tides…
Having said that though… I am not interested in the environment around the watershed/drain/river, whatever you want to call it… Only the health of the Human endeavour that is adjacent to it.
Whatever makes that Human endeavour successful and the Humans living there happy…. Is the right thing… Not saving fish an’ bugs.
If they put in a lock at the end of the river before it runs into the lakes at wellington and piped fresh water around the lakes to the people who need it they could then open the barrages thus restoring the estuarine system as it once was stopping the mouth closing up and all that dredging and probably reducing salinity in the coorong as well also saving heaps of water which is evaporated off maintaining it as a freshwater lake. It would be a win win situation and save spending stupid amounts of money pumping water around trying to stop acid sulfate soils and trying to reduce salinity in the coorong. Would cost a bit and take a while to build though, also wouldnt be as simple as just whining that its everybodies fault for taking all the water further upstream.
My understanding is that the high bank at Blanchetown is below AHD, J Hansford.
Clearly, if there are low lying farms that would be innundated at high tide if the barrages were removed then the option of protecting them with bunds should obviously be considered. But the tide goes all the way up to Morgan. And that volume of tidal change would see the equivalent of the entire 1.5 million annual megalitres of bought back fresh water flush in and out of the estuarine system TWICE EVERY DAY.
That was the nature of the original hydraulic equilibrium. And for any scientist to be suggesting that the piecemeal flushing of this system with such valuable fresh water would come anywhere near restoring that equilibrium is tantamount to an admission of gross incompetence.
The problems with stagnation at far end of the Coorong could be easily corrected by the installation of gated pipes under the sand spit to allow controlled tidal flushing at both ends in a way that would not compromise the integrity of the dunal system.
And at a cost that is only a fraction of the lost agricultural output from 1.5 million megalitres of fresh water.
Ian Mott: “$6 million for a bund wall and 4 x 24/7 pumps to do what nature and her tides would do for free.”
The cost is a lot worse than this. The 1.5 million megalitre buyback will cost at least $1.5 billion. But that doesn’t include the value of the lost produce that would have come from that water. That would be about four times as much or a lazy $6 billion.
Then there is the economic multiplier effect as this produce is transported, packed, cooked, bottled, warehoused, marketed and sold at retail. Most economists put this multiplier at about 3.3 times the farm gate value which brings the capital cost to the whole economy up to about $20 billion.
And most of this $20 billion capital wipe-out will be felt in the Murray-Darling Basin itself, by a population of about 1 million people.
A few responses to comments:
I would ask Louis Hissink to revisit the Fair Water Use site, http://www.fairwateruse.com.au , he will see that the river images on our home page are of the Darling, not the Murray.
If Cinders truly believes that SA has been insulated from drought, perhaps she/he has forgotten that SA is the country’s driest state and does not realise that, even on this winter’s day, Adelaide is still subject to draconian water restrictions that show no sign of being lifted. Moreover, it appears that SA will be the only state that will attain the water savings which all states undertook to make at a recent COAG meeting.
Perhaps it also bears mentioning that that cotton cultivation consumes around twice the amount of water used by the entire state of South Australia.
Jennifer: Blanchetown itself is 3.6metres above sea-level. Water level below the Blanchetown lock is indeed 500 mm below sea-level and falling, as steadily as its salinity is rising. You may care to visit: http://www.dwlbc.sa.gov.au/assets/files/RM_report_2may08.pdf for further details.
Rojo: I take issue with your statement that the salinity problems faced by the pool below Lock 1 at Blanchetown purely “locally-made”. As explained by a respondent to my recent letter in the Australian: “Floods have been almost completely abolished by river regulation and water extraction. As a result, fresh-water lenses no longer form, ground water freshening no longer occurs, temporary wetlands no longer fill and salt accumulates. This has been combined with the construction of weir pools that cause saline groundwater to back up into the root zone, killing trees and increasing the rate of salt accumulation in the surface soil. As a consequence the basin ecosystem is in collapse, which is easy to see and measure. The current situation is a human creation and not part of a natural cycle.”
Ian Mott: Re “There probably should not be barrages in place during no flow periods… That would ensure the normality of the system…. Probably would be less acidification with fresh seawater swishing in and out with the tides.” – A great idea per se, but sadly there is a city of over 1 million that would like to ask how you would then supply them with mains water. Do I hear the words “desalination plants” ? – I hope not.
Fair Water Use is a national body which seeks to promote measures that will improve the condition of the Murray Darling catchment as a whole, not merely the dreadful state of the “river” below lock one. Water is a national issue and dog-in-the-manger attitudes are as unhelpful as “whingeing” (sic). The barrages were installed as part of a national plan and therefore the secondary problems that have arisen are a national problem.
Fair Water Use is are currently promoting a proposal whereby the Murray would be channelled around the western edge of Lake Alexandrina and the lower Murray Lakes would be opened to the sea: http://www.fairwateruse.com.au/content/blogcategory/14/47/ .
If local councils in the area in which the Dartmouth reservoir is situated decided that the water it contained would only be made available to their ratepayers, I am sure that the remainder of Victoria would probably start “whingeing” as loudly as any South Australian. Let’s have some sympathy with the plight of all communities affected by the current crisis, and yes Jennifer it is a crisis.
The SA people and the politicians knew back in the ’80’s that the river system was in trouble. Reports and concerns raised by environmentalists and scientists about the red river gums being under distress was tabled way back then. But it wasn’t ‘politically correct’ to start waffling on about SA’s impending dire water situation, it got laughed out of parliament. The Vics, NSW’shs and Qld’ers didn’t give a toss…as was apparent with the indiscriminate expansion of agriculture and allocation of water during the Kennett Govt while Vic was undergoing a massive economic boom. Because, let’s face it guys, that’s all that really matters to those of you that couldn’t really give a toss about the river system, at the end of the day it’s all about economic boom, accruing value in property and what’s best for the people that aren’t affected by it.
Finally, after 20 years of ‘bleating’ by concerned folk in SA, the rivers adversity inflicted on it by climate change AND over allocation of it’s resources for agriculture is where it should be – in the media, and hooray finally, to those that never lost sight from the ’80’s how much attention this situation really calls for.