There are so many myths surrounding the Murray River. It is far away from most Australians who live in cities and over the years various activists have told stories which have grabbed national headlines while bearing little relationship with reality.
Then there is this general disconnect because people who live and work along the Murray, who have a different type of relationship with the River than those who campaign for it and ordinary Australians who read about it the tabloid press.
I remember having a conversation with a cameraman from Channel 9 on the banks of the Edward River (an anabranch of the Murray) before being interview by Ross Coulthard in April 2006. I was making mention of the River Redgums along the Edward and how beautiful they were but the cameraman didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then I realized he was looking about for a red-coloured tree. Of course River Red Gums are a silvery colour – it is their wood which is red and only visible when the tree is felled.
I’m compiling a list of popular Murray River myths for a new website. Following are a few, I’m hoping you can add to this list in the comments thread.
Did you know that River Redgums aren’t red?
Did you know that Murray River salinity levels more than halved between 1982 and 2002 and continue to fall?
Did you know that the Lower Lakes didn’t need to dry-up during the recent drought; that was the choice of the South Australian government?
Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was never used for river trade, wool and timber was sent from Goolwa to Victor Harbour by rail?
Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was blocked by sandbars when Charles Sturt sailed down the Murray in 1830?
Did you know that many farmers with a water licence didn’t have a water allocation during the recent drought?
Did you know the Water Act 2007 puts the environment first; water for farming is what is left over?
Did you know that the world’s largest ever environmental watering was made into the Barmah-Millewa Redgum forest during the recent drought?
Did you know that Snowy Hydro manage the waters of the upper Murray and Murrumbidgee for electricity generation, not water conservation?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Here’s one I’d like to know – has the introduction of the barrages silted up the lakes making them shallower and more dangerous for sailors and fishermen? As you said Jen, the paddle steamers could sail, fully loaded with wool or wheat to Goolwa – I doubt they could do that today.
Here’s a few I’d like to share.
The MDB has had higher rainfall in the last 55 years than the first 55 years.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=mdb&season=0112&ave_yr=15
The average rainfall in MDB from 1895 to 1904 was 408mm.
The average rainfall in MDB from 1935 to 1944 was 402mm.
The average rainfall in MDB from 2000 to 2009 was 421mm.
The average rainfall in MDB from 1922 to 1946 was 421mm. This was over 25 years the same average as the recent 10 year (only) drought.
The MDB received the highest rainfall on record during the year 2010.
I’ll bet most of these rice growers just want out:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/27/3201105.htm
Myth:
“Contrary to widespread belief today, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert were not salty estuaries in pre-European time”
Did you know that the provision of mis-informed, unsupported, error riddled and out of context information is dangerous and serves to further polarise views and make compromise, collaboration and issue resolution that much harder to achieve.
I love that one Marc!
Jen,
I attended a presentation by Louise Burge yesterday.
She will have many great one liners that you can use.
I know you have her contact details.
It is amazing how much misinformation has been quoted ad nauseum to the point that even South Australians are completely confused about the Murray Mouth.
Just as well people like Susan still live there and are prepared to actually sort through the crap to get the correct history.
Good for you Susan.
An absolute classic is the one that your latest nemisis, Arlene, has been using:
‘90% of MDB wetlands have been destroyed’.
That is actually 90% of SA’s wetlands that have been destroyed.
They destroyed them by reclaiming the wetlands that used to supply the majority of the Coorong with fresh water inflows.
Historically,very little of the fresh water inflows came from the Murray….only an average of 10%.
How did 90% in SA morph into 90% of the entire MDB?
And how did it become the fault of upstream Murray & Murrumbidgee Irrigators?
I know it’s OT but may I please repeat my first assertion regarding silting.
Yesterday I drove up the Capricornia coast from Emu Park to Yeppon – your stomping ground Jen. The ocean was brown, the beaches were brown, all due to deposits of silt washed down the Fitzroy river.
There’s a clear image of it in the Panorama of Rockhampton mounted on the wall of Rockhampton Airport. In the picture the water above the barrages is brown, the water below is clear. The silt will be filling up the area above the barrage as it settles in the stationary water.
So where does the brown Murray River silt settle?? I assume it must be in the lower lakes where the barrages stop it’s eventual flush to the sea, just like at Rockhampton. Since the 40s all that silt must have accumulated in the lakes, making them shallower and shallower as the waters clear. Lake Alexandrina is brown anyway, possibly due to the murky water from the river plus the wind stirring up the murky sediment deposited over all those years.
I wonder what the depth of the lakes would be if the sediments were allowed to flush out to the ocean, as they would have in the past and whether the lakes might again be clear.
More myths
Neville runs the old sceptic whole of MDB scam when SEACI has a much more incisive analysis. HAH !
As for silt – how about 20x pre-European loads from land clearing and consequent erosion in the catchment from agriculture and grazing.
Hi Jen,
2. Did you know that Murray River salinity levels more than halved between 1982 and 2002 and continue to fall?
Yes but in 2002 they began to rise especially below Lock 1! When the flow rate is good the salinity levels are low the average flow into SA: –
The average over the last decade of the 21st Century, 9,800-Gigalitres,
Our long (60-year average) term average has been 8,435-Gigalitres,
The first 5-years of this century 4,800-Gigalitres,
Then just South Australia’s entitlement flow 1850-Gigalitres.
3. Did you know that the Lower Lakes didn’t need to dry-up during the recent drought; that was the choice of the South Australian government? Crap it was because of bad MANAGEMENT by the MDB Commission and Federal Government!
4. Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was blocked by sandbars when Charles Sturt sailed down the Murray in 1830? Yes!
5. Did you know that many farmers with a water licence didn’t have a water allocation during the recent drought? Yes, throughout the MDB but especially below Lock 1!
6. Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was never used for river trade, wool and timber was sent from Goolwa to Victor Harbour by rail? Yes everybody knows that the Murray Mouth is too dangerous to travel through for large vessels!
7. Did you know that the Murray’s mouth was blocked by sandbars when Charles Sturt sailed down the Murray in 1830? Yes!
8. Did you know the Water Act 2007 puts the environment first; water for farming is what is left over? Not exactly correct!
9. Did you know that the world’s largest ever environmental watering was made into the Barmah-Millewa Redgum forest during the recent drought? Yes and why not!
10. Did you know that Snowy Hydro manage the waters of the upper Murray and Murrumbidgee for electricity generation, not water conservation? Yes and why not!
Hi spangled drongo,
I’ll bet most of these rice growers just want out: Crap, at the moment it is all systems go!
Hi Susan,
Myth:- “Contrary to widespread belief today, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert were not salty estuaries in pre-European time” Correct!
Hi Marc,
Thank you.
Hi Luke,
Well said the silt building at the bottom of the Locks and in Lake Alexandrina is from the Eastern States even North Queensland. When the River at Mannum is light brown we always know it is from the Darling!
Hi Luke,
You are so right!
Gee Luke that’s a scam alright, just look at how much water is in Dartmouth and Hume.
Up to 11,000 to 6,000 years BP sediment/clays still flowed from the Murray river mouth to the Murray Canyons now 200 klms away, south of Kangaroo Island. These canyons are monsters nearly five kilometres deep in parts, twice as deep as our highest mountain ( Kosy) is high.
As De Deckker has found this was a much wetter/ humid time for southern Australia and this area has been drying out for at least 5,000 years.
De Deckker’s graph in the video I’ve linked before shows two peaks , one at 5000 years bp and 1000 years bp .
There has been much reduced rainfall similar to now at 4100 years bp, 3400 years bp and 2500 years bp over southern Australia.
In the video he actually states that this 1000 year drought may still have decades to run, whatever that means.
But De Deckkers measurements of crater lakes depths over the last 5000 years shows that our record southern MDB rainfall in 2010 would probably be considered normal and certainly wouldn’t be a record.
Peter,
Did you know that a lot of the stuff you’re saying here is completely contradictory to your arguments at Charlotte’s post about investments etc in SA ?
Luke,
What’s your proposal for fixing European settlement mistakes?
Same as Peter’s I suspect?
Same as the MDBA’s as well?
ie, despite the simple fact that the whole system is regulated, we can somehow fix it by mindlessly flushing it?
Good luck with that one!
BTW, you also have to figure out where the water will come from in low flow years and also what the heck you’re going to do with it in years like 2010 and 2011.
Peter, why is tipping water out of Eucumbene when it’s not even remotely necessary a good idea?
How do you think that is going to preserve the freshwater solution for your lakes?
Just because your arguments sound noble and altruistic does not mean that they are good arguments or even more importantly that we can manage the MDB that way.
The only way you can make that work is to tip out all the productive usage of water in our dams and replace it with ‘just in case we need to flush’ water.
If you two want to keep defending the MDBA arguments, which are esentially asuming that a Bureaucracy in Canberra can manage nature and asist nature better than nature can, you go right ahead.
You are pointing your fingers at the wrong people!
It was actually Government bureaucracies who made the mistakes that you’re blaming the farmers for.
Peter, why don’t you ever mention that 90% of the fresh water that traditionally went to the Coorong and even the lower lakes did not actually come from the Murray? Why do you fail to point out that it was actually the reclaiming of wetlands from the Victorian and SE South Australian side of the Lakes that dramatically changed the ecology there?
That would have been a SA Govt decision wouldn’t it?
Now we have you two defending the right of the very same people to mess it all up even more?
Like that makes sense?
Hey Neville – but it rained – HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA – you like it both ways. Mate you’ve been telling us there is no trend so now there is – WTF ? And don’t tell Debbie that or she’ll job you one. ROFL ! De Deckker will tell you that work isn’t published and that he’s also into climate change. Do try to keep up.
Debs on the LOW speed line somewhere on the Murrumbidgee – “What’s your proposal for fixing European settlement mistakes?” – on sediment – not much soon – it’s the channels from 150 years ago. Face it – the MDB is a Euro-engineered agro-ecosystem – it ain’t natural. So let’s just do our best to not truck it up any further. That might require innovation and pragmatism. And some good will from all involved.
It really is bullshit the way government and industry carry on. Surely you would get a decent model of how the system operates hydrologically with the last 120 years of record. And some scenarios for the future based on best science. You work out what agriculture wants, red gum forests and wetlands need and optimise the bastard. You might not agree but you would have a formal calculation. So why are we still arguing about it?
Which is what the plan tried to achieve except you guys don’t believe (want to believe) the calculations. Or you really disagree with the economic versus environmental weights on the objective function. i.e. stuff the wetlands and who cares really
Essentially you’re not properly involved all the way in the process. So why aren’t you? How long do we have to keep arguing about this?
‘How long do we have to keep arguing about this?’
Until the cows come home. What the farmers and graziers want is ‘certainty’, but climate is a chaotic system and…
What we need is a decent model that illustrates clearly the time to de-stock before the next drought and give rice growers the opportunity to move into other crops. It makes good economic sense.
As natural variability appears to be cyclic it should be as easy as Pi…
Luke,
Face it – the MDB is a Euro-engineered agro-ecosystem – it ain’t natural.
That is exactly the point!
So why are we expecting a natural solution and arguing about who trucked it up? We all did!
And the basic and ultimately the most sensible solution?
That might require innovation and pragmatism. And some good will from all involved.
Exactly!!!!
As far as basics go, you and I are quite probably furiously agreeing with each other.
I will add however that the MDBA solution is off with the fairies.
It may sound noble and altruistic in theory but in practice it’s a disaster.
It will do no more good for wetlands because there is a complete lack of understanding about water management principles in a completely regulated system.
It is assuming that ‘end of system flows’ are they key indicator of river health in Australia.
Pardon?
That’s a massive quantum leap and a total misrepresentation of the naturally functioning ecosystems in the MDB rivers.
It also assumes that the Murray Mouth and the lower lakes and the Coorong are natural environmental assets. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY that it is upstream Murray and Murrumbidgee irrigation farming that has starved the Coorong and Lower Lakes of water.
Pardon?
The Coorong traditionally got 90% of its fresh water from the other direction.
The lower Lakes have been gummed up and altered primarily (not exclusively) because of those barrages.
The MDBA is almost completely and deliberately ignoring the fact that:
it might require innovation and pragmatism!
Sadly they have hijacked the work of decent people to try and prove that we’ll all be doomed if we don’t let the Federal Government and the MDBA take over.
That is the wrong type of pragmatism, that’s actually political pragmatism.
It’s also a classic example of bureaucratic arse covering!
Contrary to your statement:
Essentially you’re not properly involved all the way in the process. So why aren’t you?
MDB irrigators are fully engaged and fully aware that mistakes have been made. They are also fully aware that there are better solutions than the mind bogglingly expensive and impractical one we have seen so far.
So Luke,
Why aren’t you?
Could that be because you have no personal expertise in water management and therefore do not know as much as you so obviously think you do?
Could that be because you’ve never been to SA and studied what has been altered down there and how that affects their environment whether it’s flooding or droughting or anything in between? Or, at the very least, taken on board the extensive work of people like Jennifer Marohasy?
Or could that be because you have innocently and naively accepted Murray River Myths as truth?
Just because a falsehood gets repeated over and over again, does not mean it’s true Luke.
You do know that don’t you?
John,
Have a look at this EPA report, page 29 near the end. http://www.epa.sa.gov.au/xstd_files/Water/Report/lowerlakes_jan11_23.pdf
It’s got detail of the bathymetry levels around the Tauwitchere Barrage. The red areas, or shallow parts are up against the barrages.
I think when the barrages were built, they left the excavated soils lying there, or mounded up. This historical interview with the barrage superintendent has some insight into that here:
http://www.lakesneedwater.org/more/historical-documents
Well Debs if you were engaged agro-politically you’d be iterating to a solution and working out what you agree on and what you don’t. It seems you’re just whinging and offering no solutions. Your engagement model is crap.
A few myth homilies and home spun philosophy is far from an operating model or a water allocation strategy !
Luke unlike you I believe in natural climate change and have always noted the difference in the MDB recorded rainfall over the past century.
You just seem to make things up as you go along, it’s like trying to argue with a madman.
I’m not sure if De Deckker really believes in AGW, but his own 20 year research indeed shows incredible change in rainfall over 5000 years.
‘I’ll bet most of these rice growers just want out: Crap, at the moment it is all systems go!’
If they do decide to sell out, they will get a premium price as we head into a decade of good seasons.
Hi Luke,
Yes it is, “the MDB is a Euro-engineered agro-ecosystem – it ain’t natural” but is has been engineered, some people and I agree over engineered but is what we have got so we have to do our best with it!
If we are involved we must view all of the options and not, “stuff the wetlands and who cares really’ the wetlands area measure of the systems health.
Community consultation is a must before what is decided is put in place.
Hi el gordo,
“How long do we have to keep arguing about this?” Until we get it right!
And why, “rice growers the opportunity to move into other crops” they can continue to grow the crop of their choice when water is available.
Hi Debbie,
Maybe, “I will add however that the MDBA solution is off with the fairies” but we have to have input, all of us, or the same arguments will continue long after we are gone and that would be a tragedy.
Regarding the water for the Coorong we are working towards a solution from the South-Eastern (of SA) drainage system!
I’m sorry but Jenifer is not always right she may have done extensive work but so have so many others and they are also not always right!
Consultation, consultation is the answer and I do not agree with all the MDB A is coming up with but I prepared to be involved.
Peter,
How can you have consultation when the S.A. Government and Mr. Holmes have a fresh water policy and millions of dollars to be spent on the Lower Lakes and Coorong and they will spend it to achieve their goal, like the Dept. E&H has going around to country shows spreading the Fresh Water ideas. If they fully believe in consultation why haven’t they provided a $220,000 information centre for the salt water people plus provided a budget to visit the shows as well.
Mr. Holmes doesn’t believe in consultation, that is why he has big problems now the Marine Parks.
BTW Luke,
We probably furiously agree on the basics of this one too, except this is not the way I would word it 🙂
It really is bullshit the way government and industry carry on. Surely you would get a decent model of how the system operates hydrologically with the last 120 years of record. And some scenarios for the future based on best science. You work out what agriculture wants, red gum forests and wetlands need and optimise the bastard.
Of course we have solutions Luke,
They are far less expensive, far more practical and far less painful than what the MDBA has come up with.
We also have the models that you allude to.
Unfortunately there is no political will to even listen. Politics and the media is far more interested in fuelling yet another myth that farmers are essentially whinging rednecks or as you put it:
It seems you’re just whinging and offering no solutions.
We are attempting to expalin that the MDBA and several well meaning but totally ignorant organisations are trying to solve the wrong problem and using the wrong resources to do it.
As you rightly point out, the system is already totally regulated.
It therefore follows that an exclusively hydrological solution that wants to use the existing regulatory systems to solve a man made stuff up at the bottom of the system is actually not a smart solution.
Hydrology and hydrological models are only part of the answer.
If your definition of ‘home spun phlisophy’ is generational and historical knowledge, it is also a part of the answer.
We need to use both of those, plus geological evidence, smart and efficient engineering solutions and better storage and regulation solutions.
While we keep operating under the myth that somebody stole something from somewhere and that it has to be returned to somewhere else from something else and we cannot under any circumstances think about interfering in the ‘natural’ (ha ha!) flow of the ‘Mighty River Murray” (ha ha!), we can’t possibly move forward.
The truth is that we built the regulatory systems to open up inland Australia to agriculture.
The philosophy behind that was to store water in times of excess (like now) so we can wisely manage and distribute water in the inevitable times of shortage.
The South Australians also reclaimed large areas of wetlands (Incidentally % wise more than any other state) and put in barrages to stop sea water from entering too far into the Lakes.
Unfortunately they don’t have enough storage available to back up what they have done, or to cater for the growth that has occurred in that state.
In a series of low inflow years, SA are highly vulnerable. That is not good.
Unfortunately the systems we have in place have gone past their ‘use by’ date. There are more demands on the system than the system can supply.
There is only so much liquid you can squeeze out of a lemon.
We either upgrade it, keeping in mind that we have stuffed up badly in places, or we try to pretend we can further squeeze the lemon.
We also need to keep in mind that the environment is an important stakeholder and has been for some time.
Anything else is a stupid, circular, unproductive argument and quite probably a slow and painful death for inland irrigated agriculture.
It is also quite probably and paradoxically a slow and painful death for those Lower Lakes.
Peter,
How extraordinarily patronising of you!
“….And why, “rice growers the opportunity to move into other crops” they can continue to grow the crop of their choice when water is available.”….”
I could just as easily patronise you and say:
SA can have fresh water for their lakes when water is available.
Of course Peter, both of those comments are really not solving anything because we can all do whatever we like when there is water available!
And el gordo I seriously suspect you deserve the wooden spoon award for stirring!
Good one! It obviously worked.
ROTFL
Hi Debbie,
What a load of crap! I concur, “SA can have fresh water for their lakes when water is available” I am not asking for anything that is not available. What I am seeking is on behalf of the group I represent is an Environmental Impact Statement into the for’s and against’s of the constructing of a regulator near Wellington.
If the EIS favoured the building of a regulator then SA could hold back water and pulse it into Lake Alexandrina when necessary during times of low flows into SA. It would be SA’s water after it flowed into SA.
Peter,
Have you ever heard of a Donna Ferretti S.A. Water Principal Planner ? She gave a talk last year at Milang ( Fresh Water Embassy ) on Seawater EIS and asked the meeting to leave contact details so she could forward further information in the future. Did add at the end “Will the Lakes Remain a Fresh Water System.
Seems to me that the obsession with the lower lakes and the Murray only is somewhat myopic. Surely there’s a lot more river systems and issues in the MDB than the lower lakes?
Anyway why isn’t agriculture in this finely balanced parliament not enjoying a much better dialogue with the MDBA? Not organised guys. Work out what you agree on for the basis for developing a engagement and do it.
Good question and good point Luke,
You could also ask why aren’t State Governments and State Water Bureaucracies and Water Infrastructure Companies enjoying a better dialogue with the MDBA and the finely balanced parliament?
It has very little to do with poor organisation, although that is a highly valid criticism from the general public’s perspective.
We are continually sidetracked into irrelevant arguments about our sad and dying river system.
That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that Mother Nature is a witch spelt with a B and it didn’t rain. We discovered to our horror that Australia’s water conservation and storage systems are not capable of supplying all the demands that are placed on it in a drought like that.
Amazingly, we still kept the Murray River flowing and SA, which is far too vulnerable down the end of the system, at least had water for their towns and cities and their stock and domestic supplies.
It is not good that SA is so vulnerable, we need to come up with some good solutions to solve that problem.
The Weir at Wellington is a good idea Peter, but there is more than just that needed.
SA also has an extra option that the rest of the MDB does not have.
I would assume that SA wants to grow and prosper just like all the other states do?
We haven’t had a chance to even test the National Water Intitiative 2004, because we had a record drought, the Federal Government went into panic mode and threw the baby out with the bath water.
The problem is and always was the ‘terms of reference’ of the Federal Water Act 2007.
They have used international environmental treaties as an excuse to muscle in on water policy and water management and have now found themselves in the difficult position where they may have to admit that they might have got it wrong. No one likes to be in that position, least of all politicians.
You see, now that it has finally rained and we look like we have a couple of good seasons in front of us, the assumption that was prevelant at the time and the reason for the panic, is not coming to pass.
They are unfortunately not willing to do that yet but we are hoping that they are slowly and surely getting to that place.
And Luke, you’re right, there are of course other issues in the rest of the MDB.
None of those however require and average of 2000ML per day to be sent to the bottom of the system at exactly the same time as other water dependant assets and established and sustainable irrigation practices would require the water.
None of those require a minimum of 2,000,000 ML (2000GL) to be set aside in existing storage facilities ‘just in case’ the ‘end of system flows’ might need it.
2000ML per day equates roughly to the average YEARLY water entitlement of 5 irrigation farmers Per day! That’s 35 a week and a scary 1,820 per year.
That is not a good outcome.
Most of the other issues have good plans in place already, but at the end of the day natural environmental assets can survive droughts just fine. We have just witnessed spectacular proof of that.
It is Humans and their environments which are struggling.
That’s the problem we need to solve.
“I’ll bet most of these rice growers just want out: Crap, at the moment it is all systems go!”
Well Peter, if you were in a situation where you had A class shares in the Sunrice co-op which I believe Ebro is offering around 50 bucks each for and there was a good chance that water allocations could be removed to the point which could make them worthless, you might just be astute enough to want out ASAP.
Of course Luke is correct in saying “the MDB is a Euro-engineered agro-ecosystem” and as David Attenborough said at the end of “the living Planet” – “We have been engineering this planet for thousands of years and we have to continue engineering the planet, there’s no turning back.”
Peter backs a full weir at Wellington but won’t go further than that – surely to engineer it properly we have to consider the lower lakes and the Coorong – currently it’s doing nothing apart from supplying fresh water to a few farmers and some recreational sailing/boating. The Coorong has become an ecosystem nightmare.
I can’t see why it can’t be re-engineered to create a profitable seafood industry – let’s open up the mouth like we have all the other river mouths with rock walls and dredging to allow boat access and why not add a couple more mouths down the Coorong and let the whole system become tidal like Terranora, Lake Macquarie, Tuggerah – what a great environment for oyster and fish farms, recreational fishing and boating and sea side homes lining the northern shores of the Coorong. The open mouths will deepen the system as the silted up system expels into the ocean. No need to destroy the barrages completely, just open them up in a few places.
The Lakes can remain fresh from the Murray flows but when the flows stop the sea water reaches up as far as Wellington but NO further.
Hi Sean,
Yes I know quite well visit my web site for my contacts http://www.psmithersmyriver.com the report you are seeking is now with SA Water as Donna has left that position. I have enquired as to where I can get the report. If you send me your Email address I will forward it to you when I get it.
Hi Luke,
I don’t think it’s an obsession but I know it is a talking point with many in the Eastern States!
Hi Debbie,
In my opinion this finely balanced parliament is too interested in survival and what will happen when the Greens control the Senate?
Re, “The Weir at Wellington is a good idea Peter, but there is more than just that needed” I agree much more is needed but an EIS is a necessity!
Re, “We haven’t had a chance to even test the National Water Initiative 2004, because we had a record drought, the Federal Government went into panic mode and threw the baby out with the bath water” that’s correct.
We or most (in SA) do not expect that amount be put aside of Lakes Alexandrina and Albert.
Hi spangled drongo,
The rice farmers I know are at the moment happy and in full production. I don’t believe their water licences (being taken away) is on the cards and anyway many of them don’t have secure licences.
Tomorrow I am going sea fishing for a week and will not be turning my computer whilst I am away I need some time to recharge my batteries I will catch up when I return.
“The rice farmers I know are at the moment happy and in full production.”
I think you might find that just recently a number of them were harvesting cotton instead.
Spangled Drongo,
Sunrice A class shareholders have one A class share each and unspecified numbers of B class shares.
The B class shares depend on the amount of re investment individual rice growers and others have made in the company.
A class shareholders have been offered $50,000.00 for their A class shares. Ebro needs A class shareholders to have a 75% vote to pass the sale because A class shares are the voting shares.
A class shareholders are actually current rice growers.
B class shareholders are current rice growers, retired rice growers and also other investors.
Those shareholders have been offered approx $5.50 per B class share.
The sale of Sunrice to Ebro is hanging in delicate balance.
2 of the shareholders who have the most to gain from this sale (like upwards of $10 million) have actually come out publicly against the sale.
(I should also add that there are not many who will make huge bucks out of the sale, these two and a few others are exceptions because of the huge number of B class shares they hold)
There are many rice growers who have a foot in both camps.
The money is tempting, but because they are looking at a minimum of 2 good seasons and because there is generational pride in this company, it is possible that the sale will not go through.
The next 2 months will be very interesting.
Apologise for the mistake on the price Deb. I thought I heard 50 dollars on the radio. That should make them even more motivated if their water is in doubt.
I understand though that a number of “current” rice growers grew other crops because of the water uncertainty at time of planting.
Susan – thanks for the Lakesneedwater link – I now realise we have both come to the same conclusion via different means.
That’s Okay Spangled,
It’s likely that’s what was reported on the radio.
You are correct that other crops are being grown and management strategies have changed because of uncertainties with both water and commodity prices.
The good news is that we are looking at some good seasons for the next year or two.
Hopefully M D B farmers will get a chance to start recovering from the drought.
Peter,
Why don’t you go fishing in the Lakes? I hear the carp are biting?
Please all stop agreeing with each other that the system is totally regulated. It is not.
Do not be fooled that scientific records are are right either, much of the recent Riverina floodwater -outside the Murrumbidgee, had no models and even the Bidgee flows were underestimated ,in places.
At one stage, on Wagga ABC radio, the emergency service people stated that noone had any idea where Billabong Creek water would go.
Jennifer’s approach in talking to locals and looking at the river with an educated eye is something a few more should do. If they had, they would know that the main Murray channel flowed briskly right through the recent drought, when in a natural state it would have been dry in many sections.
This drying is beneficial to Western rivers and native wildlife.
Only European carp get upset -provided the riverside people are supplied.
Yes it makes life difficult out here when rivers dry up and luckily for us with the regulation available people can battle through in most cases.
Myths – Buying Toorale station was an efficient use of buy back money. Our money.
I’m not sure whether it is a myth or fact but buying back farms in the Murray catchment to “protect” the environment smacks more of using a specious scientific claim to get private into state ownership.
The Fabians are implementing an incremental policy that could take them centuries, if need be, but their ultimate goal is to emancipate private property from class and individual ownership. The process started with Native Title legislation, continues through creation of national parks, conservation and nature reserves.
It is continuing with the present Murray River scheme etc subject of other posts here.
Ostensibly the goal is to protect the environment. I don’t think so – it’s real purpose is to diminish and/or to control private property rights.
The various Murray River Myths are simply sales pitches to make us feel good about saving the Murray while covertly taking our rights from us.
Ian,
How true about the buyback money.
Also about the shortfalls in the models.
They are getting better but there is a long way to go.
It’s annoying when we’re told that all the science is settled and all the hydrology is complete when we know that is not the case.
The Lower MDB is largely regulated, especially the Murrumbidgee and the Murray, but the feeder creeks, tributaries, billabongs, backwaters etc are definitely not and we don’t know enough about them.
It is highly conceited of our government and the MDBA to think they can help them out and do a better job than nature can.
Here’s another myth about buybacks:
‘We are only buying water from willing sellers’
Yeah right!
If you substitute ‘desperate’ or ‘distressed’ for willing, it may be closer to the truth.
There were a precious few ‘willing’ sellers. Most were basically left with a choice between losing everything or selling empty airspace to the federal government. The vast majority of that money went straight to the banks. Very little stayed in local communities.
Now that airspace has filled up, they are clueless about what to do with it so they’re tipping it out of the top of the system ‘Eucumbene’ and letting it go through over full dams, flooded wetlands and off out to sea via the Murray Mouth.
They’ve been loudly arguing that the extra 1,500,000 ML they tipped into a flooded system did nothing to exacerbate the floods.
OK…so why on earth did they do it then?
If it made no difference to the job that nature was already doing, why the hell did they let it go???????
Sounds incredibly clueless to me!
Also disgracefully wasteful.
‘Why don’t you go fishing in the Lakes? I hear the carp are biting?’
Hahaha…..nice one Susan.
SD – Peter could always drop out a few Yabby pots.
Of course you will have to purge them in clean water overnight as they are full of NSW and Queensland’s toxic farming chemicals that have silted up on the bed of Lake Alexandrina.
He will have to stay away from the Goolwa Cockles due to e-coli as well…They have been off limits for at least a month now.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/ban-stays-on-goolwa-cockles/comments-e6frea83-1226016186366
ROTFL!
Good one Susan!
All the carp are swimming around with all the crap!
OK , So SA’s self – made toilet is getting a one in two hundred year flushing and it is still full of muck .
Remove the barrages and give it an enema !!
Hello Jennifer
To return to your original question, you might like to mention the myth of the ancient red gums.
Everyone assumes they’ve been there forever but there were no great red gum forests along the river when the first white settlers arrived.
Charles Sturt, who took a mob of cattle to Adelaide in 1838 described what is now the Barmah forest as “a vast marsh”.
A few years later the squatter Edward Curr explored the same area. Near Barmah he looked upstream and saw: “… extensive reed beds intersected by the Murray, which (an unusual feature in colonial rivers) flowed here almost without banks, and on the level of the plain.” He took up leases on those plains—25 kms of river frontage.
His neighbour across the river, Henry Lewes, said the river flats now occupied by the Moira forest were “… mostly clear swamp where afterwards it became covered in impenetrable reed beds.”
Writing from the paddlesteamer Lady Augusta on her maiden voyage up the Murray in 1853, the then governor of South Australia, Sir Henry Young, told his Victorian counterpart, Charles LaTrobe:
“The river for 40 miles approaching Swan Hill, and for 20 miles beyond it, presents the most singular aspect which it is possible to conceive—a vast plain of reeds, without visible high land of any kind, or trees; the river-course perfectly safe, open, and deep (3 and 31/2 fathoms); occasionally a fringe of high trees, and then another vast plain, entirely bare and open, with large lakes.”
There were certainly some red gums there but no forests. What changed?
River red gum seeds will not germinate in shade, even that of long grass which both Sturt and Curr certainly did see.
And when Curr’s and other squatters’ stock went to work grazing the river banks, the sun shone on the seeds and away went the trees, their spectacular growth fuelled by the recurrent floods.
very interesting post David, thx.
‘Near Barmah he looked upstream and saw: “… extensive reed beds intersected by the Murray, which (an unusual feature in colonial rivers) flowed here almost without banks, and on the level of the plain.”
This is the crux of the matter, which we have conveniently forgotten over time.
Now I know the “RED GUM” myth of the Lower Lakes. It wasn’t the salt water that caused the problem “IT WAS ALL THAT SHADE” produced by Fresh Water.
Peter Andrew, in his book, suggests that the reed beds were common in the original river environment in the MDB. The Darling had the same. Wide wetlands 40 km wide, 20 km deep.
AH yes!
But that is not what the Ramsar listings describe.
Also the requirements of the Kyoto treaty.
Have a look at what they say about these areas.
They are the benchmark being used to make decisions.
http://www.environment.gov.au/water/topics/wetlands/database/index.html
http://www.kyotoprotocol.com/
Well I have had a week off fishing at Cape Jaffa.
Hi Susan & el gordo,
You dill’s my fisherman friends in the lakes are not catching European Carp!
Hi John,
Grow up!
Hi Susan,
Plenty of cockles available, idiot.
Hi Debbie,
Another comment by an uneducated Eastern Stater!
Hi David,
Be careful lot may be you who needs the enema, but I suppose if you are full of crap it WILL come out!
Hi David,
How did the Red Gums become hundreds of years old if they weren’t there in the 1800’s?
Hi Sean,
You won’t find to many Red Gums around the Lakes!
It’s good to be back but as soon as I can I’m going back to Robe where people talk sense!!
Peter,
Stay with the program.
It is not good that SA has found itself in such a vulnerable position.
It is not good that those Lakes are suffering.
We definitely need to come up with plans to alleviate the problem.
However, while SA keeps screaming that it’s the fault of the eastern states and that the eastern states have stolen all SA’s water, you won’t get much co operation!
The Eastern States have not stolen water from SA, what a divisive and unproductive argument.
You then get upset when people start to make jokes about it? Even some of your own South Australians?
Face it….the Lakes have had their best flush on record and they’re still suffering.
You are getting so much fresh water there it is scary, yet they’re still suffering.
The answer to your problem is therefore NOT more fresh water from the eastern states, otherwise we wouldn’t be making jokes about the carp, the crap and the very flaky Ramsar influenced science.
The answer is to source more water and also to figure out how to clean up the ecological disaster that is continually developing in those lakes.
SA needs to admit their part of the responsibility and stop trying to shift the blame elsewhere.
How about they ask for help from the eastern states rather than blaming them?
Peter,
And that does worry me as the salt water that reached Mannum in 1915 also nearly killed all the Willows up to Murray Bridge. Maybe the Lakes have been too salty for a very long time.
Dean Brown’s RAMSAR agreement of 1850 GL per year has done (zilch) wonders for the Coorong.
Mr. Holmes and Seaman ? They definitely know how to spend tax payers money for their Fresh Water ideas eg the exercise that cost $10 million that didn’t work, Mr. Holmes makes the comment on 891 radio “at least we tried”.
How much effort did they put into the Sea Water EIS ? They transferred Donna from the desalination plant study, had one meeting at Milang in the $220,00 Fresh Water embassy and that was that and now she has gone.
Sean,
It increasingly appears that you are right.
All of it appears to be about politics rather than a genuine desire to recognise the problem and then come up with sensible plans to correct it.
SA have allowed themselves to become a part of the problem (politics) instead of part of the solution.
Nearly all the evidence indicates that more fresh water from the Murray is not the answer.
The ecologocal disaster that is developing there has not been fixed by one of the biggest flushes and lengthiest flushes on record.
There is no way that upstream storages can deliver a bigger flush than the one the lakes are getting now.
The answer and the best solution obviously lies elsewhere.
SA would do well to decide what it actually wants to achieve rather than playing politics and muddying the water even further.
I sincerely hope that now Mother Nature has stepped in, we all take the time to learn the hard lessons we have been taught.
There is no question that SA is extremely vulnerable at the bottom of the system. That is not good.
What can be done to sensibly mitigate the risks?
I grew up with an estuary beside our farm . Sometimes it was fresh ,sometimes salty, but it was always tidal and always part of the sea, not the inland. Sheep would get ‘hooked’ on the salt water sometimes and we had to lay boards end to end ,crawl out and try to save them from the tide.
I think that a lot of the people who want things done to the Murray need to love estuaries , like me.
Not love an artificial freshwater reservoir. Stinking thing.
I am off up the “endangered ” Darling again next week , come and look.
Oh and Gulpa redgum forest is called ” The Whitemans Forest ” The reason is obvious.