“There is more to fixing the Murray-Darling Basin than fixating on the amount of fresh water coming downstream,” writes Johnny Kahlbetzer in today’s The Australian…
“I am a Murray-Darling Basin food and fibre producer, and I’m very aware of how much water our operations use. My company, Twynam Agricultural Group, also invests in research and develoment constantly to improve water-use efficiency so we can produce more food and fibre with less water.
“But the bottom line is that food and fibre production requires water, so on average there is less water flowing to the Murray Mouth, Coorong and Lower Lakes. Food and fibre producers don’t take all the water. In fact because of upstream storages there is more water on average in the Murray River during drought, including the recent drought, than there was historically…
Read more here:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/free-flowing-estuary-vital-to-healthy-river/story-e6frgd0x-1226070473687
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Great job Johnny and great job Jen,
A heartfelt thank you from my patch in the MDB.
It is wonderful that the National Media is FINALLY starting to listen to people who have practical knowledge about water management in the MDB.
If it wasn’t for your work and, of course the work of many others, we would already be wasting the wrong resources to solve the wrong problem.
We have to recognise that some mistakes have been made.
One of the most serious mistakes have been made in South Australia.
It’s OK….there are other mistakes that need to be fixed as well….but we have to at least be honest and recognise that more water thrown at a place that has already proven it is not ecologically sustainable under current management regimes, will not solve that problem and actually create problems elsewhere.
That does not make sense.
‘End of system flows’ and confiscating productive water will NOT fix the developing problems in South Australia!
It would be great if we could all start looking for solutions that WILL actually help SA and the whole MDB!
People like Johnny, who have experience in water management, will come up with practical solutions that will help the entire MDB to become more sustainable and more productive.
You guys just don’t get it; do you?
The national debate is not about a handful of industries or a couple of hundred farmers on the way through, but about all users including the rather dependent folk in Canberra, Adelaide and a few big towns in between, also a lot of wildlife and more than a tad of our environment.
The item as published has no science to back it. Yes we could say dams hold back enough to go round in drought time but I want to know how evaporation through irrigation etc will help the more general environment issues. Perhaps the wildlife and the bush is allowed to move onto crops in difficult times.
We can guess folks downstream will continue to miss out when the sprays go up, despite the proposed better management upstream cause their numbers go up regardless as it is. Try telling communities at the lower lakes they can have more salt water over time because we can’t flush often enough with high quality fresh.
All inland populations have to be catered for on a cost effective basis. Debs would be pleased to know I spent a while in technical support for water quality and sewage treatment at various places including the whole Melbourne metro area after severe shortages in water supply.
gavin, I get it.
The next two decades will be cool and damp, with plenty of ‘high quality fresh’.
Pull the barrages down and let nature take its course.
Oh Gavin, no science? And please, sewage treatment? That’s not what an estuary is about.
Take a look at this report from 2000, before the scientists were hamstrung by state politics on what they were allowed to report in order to keep their cushy scientist projects.
http://thelivingmurray.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/1482/full_barrages.pdf
And all Australians should really look world-wide to see if other continents have similiar issues. Tidal barrages are an environmental disaster, and they don’t do what everyone wants for very long before environmental issues get them better of them. Does anyone think that building a dam across an estuary is a good idea anymore?
The Lucky Country has run out of luck on this one. You’ve had a good run, since the 1940’s but now it’s time to fix it. The Greens ought to be leading the way on this one, but guess what? They need the votes too.
That’s why it’s been so hard to fix. It’s a very ‘contentious’ problem.
Good point Susan,
Actually there is a bit of ‘sewage ‘ mentality as everyone so far wants to ‘flush’ !
Gavin. You are not getting it.
Many of us are completely aware that the problem is almost entirely political and devoid of anything practical.
The so called science that you are referring to has been almost completely discredited.
Although, Debbie, Gavin is mostly correct in the majority of the ‘science’ has not been discredited at all. That’s the scary part.
Most of the ‘science’ is about a freshwater ecology of the Lakes and Coorong. Check out the CLLAMM ecology sites from Flinders Uni, check out the various CSIRO reports, the Adelaide Uni freshwater ecologists, etc. They all dance around the real issue and report on what they have been asked to report on by the government. The loss of freshwater species. The reports are accurate if you take the 1940’s benchmark that includes the barrages. That also includes most of the measurements taken for coastal issues as well.
SA has a lot at stake here. There are at least 100 irrigator properties around the Lower Lakes with an entitlement of sorts to freshwater from the Lakes. That does not include a lot more than that upstream of Wellington and 200 k’s to Blanchetown at the first Lock.
For you guys ‘upstream’ you are all in mostly the same boat. Down here, neighbor is pitted against neighbor depending on what industry you’re in. Irrigator, dairyman, fisherman, tourist.
Sounds like a jump rope rhyme.
Gals; what rot! The science of sewage treatment upstream is in this case the science of water treatment downstream treatment and we do leave a bit behind for you.
“Tidal barrages are an environmental disaster” and so are dams. Take one out, take the lot for the same reasoning.
“The Lucky Country has run out of luck on this one” and it’s otherwise know as climate change, man made and all just like the rivers we’ve collectively stuffed. As you say “had a good run, since the 1940′s but now it’s time to fix it”
“The so called science that you are referring to” is only what I make up as we go along, no references hey sorry. Btw I read many reports during my work besides engineering, everything from flouridation to illicit drug use so I don’t need to see another opinion on some other blog frequented by home spun authors here
Amazing. An estuarine dam is desirable, a fresh water dam for human use is bad. Amazing.
When times are difficult, it is suggested that we reintroduce bush and wildlife to crop-land, rather than increase our water harvesting capacity. Amazing. Can you imagine all that fire-prone regrowth scrub over thousands of hectares? A Bob Carr style National Park? Lots of rubbish acreage and no management? Or do we clear the scrub and shoo the animals away when the rain falls again? (That would be a fun job.) Future revenues will be generated by ripping up prime land elsewhere for expatriated coal and gas, which will be too expensive to burn domestically.
Dams are like fossil fuel combustion. They are superior resources, entitling us to an enormous bounty. Yet we have allowed the self-loathers to gnaw away at the collective conscience till we feel we should be happy with a few expensive, inferior crumbs. Our birthright is reduced to guilty cravings.
Nope. The debate is over and the science is settled. Environmentalism is clearly a neurosis.
The political cure: Destabilise the independents, defeat Federal Labor, crush the Greens as a parliamentary force, ditch Turnbull and the doctors wives, sack the Watermelon bureaucrats.
Harsh. But no choice. You can’t run a country on neurosis.
Please don’t take offence with my type of defense such as above based on a knock out blow as I deflect or attack imo a particular narrow point of view.
eg words missing in irrigation rhetoric, river flow “surge” or “pulse”, stream and wetlands “sensitivity”, landscape “variability” and lake water “spontaneousness” with regard to inputs. Slime factors should measured and understood.
Robert; how long do you think you could survive in this country as a self imposed dictator?
It’s a very odd question you ask Gavin, particularly after I’ve just proposed action through forcing a Federal election. Perhaps your question just reflects your general displeasure at my remarks.
However, I’ll answer your question. I could survive no time at all as a self imposed dictator, which is why I like Australia so much. We are not just a Lucky Country, we are a country that gets things right more often than not. The present government and intellectual leadership are a brief (I hope) aberration.
The Murray-Darling will be a difficult fix, because the needs of so many conflict. But answers will be found if we start by respecting production and accepting necessary entropy while protecting wilderness and watershed from frivolous misuse. Nor, as I said, should we be ripping prime grazing land apart for hurriedly exported coal we cannot afford to burn domestically.
In short, we need genuine conservation, which has nothing to do with the self-loathing and neurosis which calls itself Environmentalism.
There you go, Gavin. A long answer, but a very peculiar question.
The lower lakes are the product of many years of collective water management, principally by the South Australian Government. They made the policy decision to install barages and turn a river estuary into a freshwater lake many years ago and today we are seeing the results of that policy. The Murray mouth requires dredging to maintain flow, the barages acted as dykes during the recent drought with water levels in the lake over 1m below sea level, the second major wave of loss of industry as a direct result of the impact of the barages ( the first wave was when the barages were installed and the estuary dependent industries collapsed, the second wave was during the last drought when there were no water allocations available and many irrigators went bust).
Removing or opening the barages seems like the logical solution from an environmental perspective and clearly from a water management one too as the MDBA noted in senate estimates recently that their new models were no longer based on end of system flows but on providing water to environmental assets. What is not clear is if their new models regard the SA lower lakes as environmental assets or not.
gavin,
“I spent a while in technical support for water quality and sewage treatment ”
Explains a lot of things!
‘In fact because of upstream storages there is more water on average in the Murray River during drought, including the recent drought, than there was historically…’
If this simple message could be explained to the wider electorate, along with the knowledge that the River
Red Gum forrest is not exactly pristine, we should be able to bring some common sense back into the debate.
The piece has been republished at On Line Opinion here:
http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12147
I have gotten lost in the debate going on here. I am an irrigator below lock 1 but well above both Lakes. During the drought we sufferred low water levels and difficulties with access as the both lake levels were kept low, unlike anywhere else along the system where water levels were kept artificially normal. We managed through these times and hope something has been learned by the managers of the rivers so that it is better managed when drought returns.
However, that is unlikely. Policy makers depend on advice provided from “best available science”. My gripe is with the “climate change scientific industry” that is encouraged, no demanded, by government. This industry has formed a basis for the MDBA draft plan and will be the end to irrigators and the food bowl of the Murray, without the accountability for their advice. Livelihoods, communities, towns, are all suffering already and will continue to do so under the regime of the climate change science and the falsehoods they tell and scare tactics they use.
South Australia as a whole accounts for losses of water from the lakes in their allocated flow to the state already. Sort of. But the huge amount of water that has flowed through Lake Alexandrina and through the barrages this year has done little to reduce the salt loads in Lake Albert, and clearly more engineering is required here rather than simply putting fresh water in the system. That means reducing allocations upstream is not the simple answer.
Whether sea water is allowed to enter the lakes is only another option, but may cause more problems than it solves environmentally, so is not the simple answer it may appear to be.
Totally agree though that some old decision from the 1970’s that created our Ramsar arrangments, can be a barrier to real improvement in the area and thus for the whole river. Time for people to stop using the Ramsar agreement to bolster their argument as it was based on even less reliable science than what we use now.
Time to go back to the drawing board, but in the meantime irrigators are supposed to battle on??? What a joke
Robert; re our government, showing your poor adaptability to present circumstances indicates an extreme neurosis could be surfacing. Beware of that self beneath hey
Gav,
Remember this song? You alarmists have been singing it for nearly 50 years but it hasn’t happened yet.
D’you think maybe you’re just ahead of your time? It’ll happen sooner or later?
Any catastrophe in a storm?
No, Gavin, I’ve checked and I’m just fine. Just the odd comprehension difficulty:
“The science of sewage treatment upstream is in this case the science of water treatment downstream treatment and we do leave a bit behind for you.”
Robert; there has been controversy regarding water recycling where A local health expert says we can’t get rid of all the pathogens despite using world’s best practice.
Aparently Adelaide experts also remain wary of Actew’s ACT plant and it’s discharges into the Murrumbidgee despite all those sunny river reaches down the MD way
It’s OK Susan,
The science that Gav was referring to by his own words is:
“The so called science that you are referring to is only what I make up as we go along, no references hey sorry. ”
He is just demonstrating that he is being entirely political and a loyal patriot to his particular brand of politics.
He also must have thought his sewage analogy was very witty.
You are also correct to point out that all the science is about fresh water ecology.
I didn’t word that comment very well.
I should have said that all the nonsense we are hearing, including the science (very unfortunately), is POLITICAL and there is precious little attention being paid to practical management solutions.
Can I also suggest that we all be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of blaming farmers anywhere (including SA farmers) for these issues?
We need to remember that farmers do not have control of allocations, neither did they have control of the issue of water licences.
Farmers were in fact encouraged by State & Federal Governments to do what they have done.
They are reacting badly sometimes because they have been painted as evil ‘anti environmentalists’ by the Water Act, The MDBA and the media.
We also need to remember that SA is very vulnerable because it is at the bottom of the system and it does need fresh water and a sensible fresh water management regime.
Also remember that at the time, people thought it was an excellent idea to build those barrages. It is only hindsight that has proved that approach was not sustainable.
The real problem is that our governments have not upgraded and improved infrastructure and storages to cater for the rise in production and population all over the MDB.
That is particularly noticeable in SA but it is also a problem upstream.
Our politicians with the help of scientists are trying to solve the wrong problem with the wrong resources.
Susan,
The article in The Adevertiser by Catherine Hockley hasn’t appeared on the Adelaide Now web site, which makes hard to point out a few things, bit like dealing the S.A. Govt.’s Fresh Water and Fresh Water only.
Part of the article “But critics said the cosequences would be devastating,including: ADELAIDE’s water supply becoming salinised. A WEIR needed to be built at Wellington to stop salt water travelling upstream. THE Lower Lakes, and Coorong becoming hypersaline, killing off freshwater species native to the area. SALT would build up in the river system. THE MOUTH could close.
The critics continue with A WEIR we need a Lock above Wellington to allow boating to continue up and down the river to the Murray Mouth as well as protecting Adelaide’s water. The Coorong is already above Brine level of 50,000 EC with Parnka Point 110,466 EC and Snipe Island 116,487. Lake Albert continues to be around 6,500 EC, Beacon 75 South Stony Point in Lake Alexandrina 10,461 EC. The Goolwa Channel has reached as high as 40,000 EC and caused a fish kill. We have had high tides and strong winds e.g. one day down stream of the Barrage was 0.940m and upstream 0.54m. Last Friday when at the barrage at 3.00pm the river was flowing upstream and the chambers still have to be closed. The mouth did close without the barrages being open.
Susan,
Sorry the above should have read Jennifer. Very interesting though how it wasn’t on the Adelaide Now web site.
Gavin it is rather odd that you say this:
“Tidal barrages are an environmental disaster and so are dams. Take one out, take the lot for the same reasoning.’
and this:
‘and it’s otherwise know as climate change, man made and all just like the rivers we’ve collectively stuffed’
And then crow about your involvement in ‘another big dam’
HUH ?????????????????????????????????????????????????
Hi Sean.
I would guess that The Advertiser pulled the story’s link off the main page and stopped allowing online comments when the comments don’t go the way they want them to. Here’s the permanent link (stopped after 15 comments).
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/irrigators-campaign-to-remove-barrages-from-murray-mouth/comments-e6frea6u-1226071305358
A letter to The Australian yesterday.
the link:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/murray-estuary/story-fn558imw-1226071286335
Yvonne, Thanks for your important insights.
Sean, Thanks for the update and for reminding us about the need for a lock not a weir.
Jen’s comment caused me to look up Yvonne again.
Yvonne says “Time to go back to the drawing board, but in the meantime irrigators are supposed to battle on??? What a joke”
As I said it’s not about farmers or environmentalists but all who depend on the MDB catchment and a larger number are not right on the river. “Back to the drawing board” probably entails going back to the engineers who must be scratching their heads while remaining hopeful each region’s old expectations will go way down in the face of modern river science.
Post ww2 every body wanted their own dam and with the Snowy scheme the MDB got a promise of bit more water then the states got busy selling it while accountants and ecologists had their backs turned.
Climate change or not this mess has to be cleaned up and it won’t be done by a handful of writers with their heads filled with nostalgia. The value of water has changed too. All costs must be up on the white board as many move to cities. No one industry should miss out either be it fishing , farming, forestry or some new enterprise associated with higher density living.
You gals need to be published in the Canberra Times and on other big daily front pages then heard on National ABC where the most important science flows. Pulling up or pouring fresh another piece of concrete requires authority from all of us.
Yvonne,
I have read that if there was a Lock around Wellington, then it only takes 50GL of water to keep the section of river from Blanchetown (Lock1) to Wellington ‘full’. Compare that with the 2000 GL it takes to keep the Lakes ‘full’.
But since there is no lock at Wellington, it is the barrages that are used to keep your section of river high enough to gravity feed irrigation. The distance between Lock One at Blanchetown and the barrages is over 250km, the longest section of no-locks on the river.
By what method is your water for irrigation delivered?
I understand various governments over the last 20 years have been talking about the need for such a lock near Wellington. Not to mention the lastest weir proposal at Pomanda Point in 2008 that got shot down.
Yvonne,
Unfortunately the irrigators just below Lock 1 didn’t get the same deal as the Lower Lakes, like a new pump station and pipeline back upstream above the lock. This is part of the S.A. Govt. fresh water policy. You can thank the RAMSAR agreement as that was used to get Adelaide’s 200 GL water supply without building a new reservoir. What they don’t tell you is that a RAMSAR agreement can fresh,salt or sea water, they keep playing the FRESH CARD. As Susan says above we need Lock upstream of Wellington. I believe Peter Smith of Mannum calls it Lock 0.