The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in Adelaide today for a community cabinet meeting. Various media reports suggest there will be pressure on the government to “save” the lower lakes with a special water allocation from upstream.
As part of the meeting the federal cabinet will be briefed by the Murray Darling Basin Commission on following this advice, Mr Rudd has said, “Cabinet will then look at what further measures will be possible to reduce the pressure on the system.”
Online Opinion published a piece by me this morning suggesting the solution for the lower lakes lies in opening the barrages, but saving the Murray River is a potentially more difficult proposition.
Read the piece, entitled ‘Saving the Coorong by restoring its native state’ by clicking here.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
The notion, popular in SA, that one can “save” an unnatural ecological assemblage by the addition of more unnatural features is pure absurdity.
The estuary can only be “saved” by restoring as much of the original ecological values as possible. And the only way to do that is to remove the barrages (which would never pass an EIS today) and pipe water to those who were dependent on the modified system.
The days when these glutonous parasites could evaporate a million megalitres each year so they can supply about 100,000ml to estuarine users are gone. The lights are on, the shadows are gone and there is no more tolerance of this bull$hit.
“In the case of the lower lakes, the barrages are stopping inundation from seawater; in the same way the dykes in Holland are used to reclaim land.”
Is this another potential practical course of action? Shut the lakes off entirely (so confining the acid), let them evaporate and go long-term for the conversion of lake to land?
Mark, acid water would pour out of the area everytime it flooded – lots and lots.
The latest news is that these hideoids are going on a witch hunt to confiscate any water that prudent farmers have kept on farm for maintaining minimum services, like keeping orchard trees barely alive or water for stock. These farmers are now being demonised as “hoarders” to make the government’s actions appear less venal and corrupt than they really are.
And for what? To “save” an artificial lake from the sea water that has ebbed and flowed with the tides for all but 70 of the past 10,000 years!!!
It seems they plan to target entire irrigation communities and completely shut them down in the name of environment jihad.
I have a horrible feeling this is all going to lead to bullets and bombs. And worse, it is exactly what these scumbags deserve but none of them are worth the suffering such action will inflict on the families of those who respond.
What it does make clear to me is that this is no longer a country that is worth allowing a son to risk his life for. Farmers all over this country should think about that before they let their kids continue to form the backbone of the ADF.
This bunch of scum is not worth the death of one good man.
You’re on the right track Ian, I just wouldn’t piddle on them if they were on fire!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch:-
http://www.smh.com.au/news/annabel-crabb/annabel-crabb/2008/08/14/1218307120364.html
I can hardly wait the toowrong Coorong solution!
I was appalled this morning to learn that water from upstream irrigators will be forcibly purchased from idividuals and whole communities, to provide environmental flow for the Lower Lakes. No matter how this is spun, force will be applied to meet the targets.
This is a clever, vile piece of wedge politics, pritting primary producers and river communities against each other across States. With the result that in the fall-out,more irrigated water will be transferred to environmental flows, without solving the long term problem, which will require yet more water from upstream irrigators, as environmental speakers have already stated.
Much better to bite the bullet, build a barage at Wellington, open the barage at Goolawa, return the Lower Lakes to an esturarine system, and negotiate for piped water from the river as part of the compensation for the Lakes communities that will lose their fresh water source. Much cheaper, and a more permanent solution than the open-ended raid in irrigation quota that now proposed.
As a farmer, this move deeply worries me. A government that has the power to give you everything you want, via forcible transfer of assets, has the power to take away everything you have, via the same method.
Environmental flows for the lower lakes should come from forced transfer of allocated environmental flows upstream. If this cannot be justified, then open up the Goolwa barage.
Helen Mahar
Jennifer M
“acid water would pour out of the area everytime it flooded – lots and lots. ”
Never mind, the CSIRO says this ain’t gonna happen anymore …
Is anyone still in doubt as to why himself was nicknamed “Rudderless” well before the election ? His smug vanity was insufferable then, even PJK (Keating) couldn’t stand him.
Thanks Jen. So how did the Dutch manage it?
Tree ring records show that we have had a couple of 8 or 10 year long dry time and even a 14year long dry times in the last 400years. When we say that the MD basin is going into year 8 of well below average inflows, we mean the average of the most recent 100 years.
If we go into an extended dry time, we need to look to a future with less fresh water in our rivers. Building a weir at Wellington will be about as useful as building a pipeline from from the Goulburn River to Melbourne. There is already a perfectly good weir at Blanchetown, known as Lock One.
Run a pipe each side of the River from Lock One down to those who have foot valves in what has been an estuary. Assuming that these pumps have entitlement and accurate meters?
Earl Ricpe 16Aug2008.
The other key point in this debate is that it was always tidal flow in drought that provided the ecological safety valve. And when the barrage was built they removed this safety valve, under the assumption that this safety valve was never used (wrong) and that it would also never be needed (also wrong).
What it does clearly demonstrate is the complete failure of the respective metropolitan majority governments in each state to protect the interests of their rural minority.
The urban governments in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all have greater empathy with Adelaide than they do with their own rural communities. And they will not object to the bogus and fraudulent acquisition of rural water rights because they obviously reserve the perogative to do exactly the same at a time of their choosing.
Must be time to get down there with a whole pile of plastic pipe and start syphoning the sea water over the barrage. It will not be hard because the sea water is 50cm higher than the estuary level.
Set up a camp out along the bund, fortify it, do the business and bust every head that comes anywhere near trying to stop you. The bush community cannot allow this to continue in the shadows. There is no coincidence that this has been announced while everyone is watching the f@#$g olympics. So get down there and make them show the world what a venal bunch of criminal scum have been elected here.
To go quietly into that long confiscated goodnight will be the cruelest joke we can bequeath to our kids. For if we hand them a system that can quietly confiscate by fraud then we hand them no future at all.
I come from one of those families that had a photo of a young uncle in uniform that we never knew. I remember how the christmas conversation would fall silent when someone noticed one of the kids had his uncle’s mannerisms. And Grandma had to busy herself in the kitchen for a while then slip the kid in question an extra piece of cake.
We all need to go down to our local cenotaph, read off the names, and ask ourselves if we are still fit to walk on the same side of the street as them. Have they given up their whole future while we won’t even spend a week in jail for busting an eco-fascists nose?
“Thanks Jen. So how did the Dutch manage it?”
The Dutch were out claim land from the sea not turn salt water lakes into freshwater ones in an often drought stricken land.
Well Hissink, I hope you have read the above. Violence you ask? Pfffttt! But of course Bird gets threatened with expulsion, although his comments manage to stay put. What a charming very best emvironmental blog in the world this is. Does Jen proud.
It should also not be forgotten that the South Australians have already had a significant increase in their water allocation by way of the increased environmental flows that have been released over the past few years.
The irrigation cap has been in place in NSW since 1995 and since that time there has been a significant change in the storage regime in the major dams.
Prior to 1995 there was a much greater portion of total flows captured in the major storages and retained for future use. But since then a larger portion has been released as environmental flows throughout the year. And that has left a much smaller volume available as “water of last resort”.
This means that the entire system has undergone a policy shift that has seriously reduced the length of the drought that it is capable of dealing with. And much of those earlier flows can now be seen as pure environmental indulgence.
Some flows were well in excess of what would have taken place under natural conditions. These flows operated more like a water equivalent of an “income equalisation scheme” where the seasonal fluctuations were smoothed out in the mistaken belief that a healthy natural system involved constant flow.
Students of hypocrisy will also be interested to note that the South Australians had no qualms about accepting these indulgent flows at times and places that were only made possible by the very storage infrastructure that they now complain of.
And the fact that they now want to drain the very last drop from anyone who might have saved their water for just such a contingency as this one puts them beneath contempt.
The South Australians have ruthlessly stacked the entire Murray-Darling policy infrastructure like a virulent parasite or carcinoma. And they have demonstrated a willingness to take and take from the system right up to the point of death.
The barrage must be breached and the social and political cost of water confiscation must be raised significantly. And if government will not breach the barrage then ordinary people must do it for them.
don’t worry – an alternative plan has been launched
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24197106-11949,00.html
damn – it didn’t post my rolleyes
So the desal water will pump itself up the range using less energy than that produced by the hydro on the other side? Yeah, right.
The solution is to recycle the daily environmental flows. Divide the river system into segments and continuously recycle the same flow water over each section by pumping it back up to the start point each day. The length of each recycle section would be defined by matching the cost of pumping to the value of the water saved.
That is, if the value of a saved meagalitre is $400 then the cost of pumping that megalitre back to the start (including pipes, pumps, fuel etc) must not exceed $400. So instead of using 365 megalitres for a year of 1 megalitre daily flows, we use one megalitre 365 times and sell the other 364 megalitres to someone who will use it wisely.
See “Snow Job on the Snowy River” at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5170
The South Australians are clearly incapable of using any water wisely. And will not be seen to have done so until they remove the barrages and make a proper investment in desalination for their own use (a reasonable step to help themselves).
Ian, please think twice before linking to articles like “Snow Job …”. You could incite people to be as angry as you are. Green Pork anyone?
Yes, Helen, once one understands the true magnitude of green incompetence there is no other sane response but anger.
“the most inefficient water users, and those most reluctant to adopt new ideas, technology and innovations, are the Green movement and their captive departmental minions. Unlike sewerage or storm water recycling, water that is released for environmental flows needs no expensive processing to enable it to be used again, and again. And this capacity for multiple recycling gives it an entire order of magnitude greater priority than all other water efficiency options. We all need to get a lot smarter with our use of water but our self appointed environmental guardians have a lot further to go than anyone else”.
And the clowns are not even looking in the right direction.