“World Environment Day is a time to celebrate what has been achieved, but also to reflect on many seemingly insurmountable problems,” said Murray Darling food producer, Johnny Kahlbetzer.
“The Murray River is important to me,” said Mr Kahlbetzer, “And it is important for the Murray River that it has a healthy estuary.”
“Just as lakes and wetlands need freshwater, rivers need estuaries. The problems of the Murray are exacerbated by five barrages that now separate salt water close to the river mouth from fresh water in Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Built in the 1930s the barrages have crippled the Murray River estuary.”
“Freshwater needs to come down the River to trigger spawning of fish and flow out the Murray Mouth to take nutrients to creatures like the Goolwa cockle but saltwater is also required for the estuarine ecology.”
“The health of the Murray River and its estuary is dependent on more than the amount of water coming downstream,” said Mr Kahlbetzer.
“Yet in all the arguing about the new plan for the Murray Darling Basin there is no discussion about the Murray River estuary or the barrages.”
“I cannot see the logic in allocating thousands of more gigalitres of precious freshwater each year to these lakes,” said Mr Kahlbetzer, “when they have an estuarine history.”
“Evaporation from the Lower Lakes has been estimated at 1,300 GL each year. This is the equivalent of three Sydney Harbours of freshwater which is an enormous quantity of freshwater because the Lower Lakes are a vast shallow expanse of water not quite the size of Port Phillip Bay and maintained as an artificial freshwater system.”
Concerned about the current direction of water reform Mr Kahlbetzer has joined the group ‘Myth and the Murray’ to help get the Lower Lakes healthy and back the way they once were.
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This is the first media release from the Myth and the Murray Group.
Adverts have been placed in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald for World Environment Day on this issue sponsored by Mr Kahlbetzer. For more information visit the media page at www.mythandthemurray.org
About Myth and the Murray – Myth and the Murray is a group of Australians concerned about the health of the Murray Darling and in particular its estuary.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Tonight, I made the mistake of watching the news after the Rugby League on NBN.
The mawkish reporting of of the Yes Campaign and its insufferable finger-waggers, was top of the news. Special attention was paid to “a report” which describes what “would” happen when sea-levels rise etc. In case we experienced any skepticism, we got a helicopter view of some ocean-front – where nothing was happening. This was followed by some nanny-state nagging on how we can all do our bit to reduce consumption of energy – expressed, needless to say, as private financial savings – all under the benevolent guidance of tax-funded twats. Did you know you can turn off your spare bar-fridge? Your government has experts with doctorates who can show you how!
It’s time to divorce ourselves from events like World Environment Day, Earth Hour etc. Those who love the bush, love production and love people need to find their own outlets of expression. Environmentalism has become a mass neurosis, and those who are not infected need to stay clear of of all its toxicity by rejecting all its institutions. I don’t say we should avoid the human beings, but the time has certainly come to avoid the ceremonies and fetishes generated by the neurosis.
And it’s not like anyone really cares. Just last night I spoke with a group of people who are of the Green persuasion. I should add that they are true friends and they are fine family people. I happened to express, without harping, my disapproval of driving cars on beaches. Because these people like to fish, I got cool or surprised looks.
We are all becoming Carbon Cates, where the piety and political posture are all that matter. We are happy to oppose a much needed dam in Tassie or a profitable irrigation industry far out west, but it’s too hard to park a car and walk to a fishing-spot.
I say: a pox on World Environment Day, and a pox on that foul hag called Gaia!
Good for you Jen,
The Myth and the Murray site is starting to get some real traction.
I’m still appalled at the mindset that Robert has pointed out here.
It’s ridiculous to argue that we shouldn’t have an effect on our environment. What nonsense! We all do!
It is even more ridiculous when it is people who won’t even park their car and walk to a fishing spot.
They want everywhere else to change and are pious and moralistic about everywhere else but don’t want anyone to interfere in their patch.
I think Robert may be right: Environmentalism has become a mass neurosis or maybe ‘mass hysteria’ is also an applicable term?
It also amuses me that we never hear Mr Flannery speaking about the problems on the Hawkesbury River.
That’s his patch.
In Australia, a lot of what we have done has made our environment more inhabitable and more productive. There are many thriving communities in the MDB in places that were originally uninhabitable for both humans and native flora and fauna.
We have also made some mistakes and they need to be rectified. (Interestingly the Hawkesbury is one of those places 🙂 )
One of the more obvious mistakes is in South Australia.
At the moment we have groups such as the Wentworth Group, wanting to fix this mistake by confiscating water from places where we have actually improved our environment and trash the water into places where we have made mistakes.
That doesn’t really make sense does it?
We can’t fix our mistakes if we use the wrong resources to solve the wrong problem.
The lower lakes have had one of the longest flushes in its history. There is absolutely no way that upstream storages and irrigation works could ever hope to deliver the sort of flush that our own highly variable climate has just delivered.
Interestingly, many of the problems that ‘the Science’ claimed could be fixed by more water have actually worsened. In particular the build up of salts, toxins and sediment.
So, it seems that more fresh water to flush out the Murray Mouth is probably not the best way to address the problems that have developed there?
Maybe we need to look at other more practical solutions?
When I ‘reflect’ I tend to look back at history and see how or why things have gotten to the state their in.
Reflecting back at the first European settlement efforts around South Australia back in the 1830-40’s. Their were fishing operators as early as 1846 and the first herds of cattle were brought in the late 1830’s with pastoral leases established around the Lower Lakes and Coorong at about the same time. Cattle had a “devastating effect on the delicate ecological and sociological balance” around the Lakes and Coorong.
As more and more farming and grazing interests came to settle around the Lower Lakes, and after a few droughts, especially the ones in the 1860’s, the settlers began complaining about the water going salty. It was the farming interests that petitioned for the barrages to be built, and not the fishers.
Fishers were pulling in 90kg mulloway and brought in a record 595 tonnes of mulloway in 1939. The fishers were concerned about the proposal to create fresh water lakes behind the barrages, and it’s effects on the fishing. They were told by the Royal Commission in 1935 that the freshwater species would make up for the loss of the estuarine species. Pastoralists having more political power than fishers.
So the barrages were built.
Now we have freshwater species carp pulling in 792 tonnes annually in 2008-09 and only 30 tonnes of mulloway. None of them being 90 kgs (a 25 year old fish) anymore. We have farmers along the Lower Murray and Lower Lakes still complaining about lack of water or the fact that the water is too salty. And we have well-meaning environmentalist claiming ‘it’s always been fresh’.
Time to reflect on what to do next.
Check out this page for some history and sources.
http://www.lakesneedwater.org/home/history-of-the-lower-lakes-and-coorong
Image of a 91kg mulloway from 1938 Milang
http://images.slsa.sa.gov.au/godson/2/01250/PRG1258_2_1109.htm
Good article in the Australian this morning.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/free-flowing-estuary-vital-to-healthy-river/story-e6frgd0x-1226070473687