TWO of the most controversial issues that will face the Gillard government in the coming months — the allocation of water in the Murray-Darling Basin and the carbon tax — have something in common. They arise from legislation based on the commonwealth’s foreign affairs powers and international environmental conventions entered into under that power.
The Lower Lakes and the Coorong that lie landward of the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia were listed as a wetland of international significance under the Ramsar international convention on wetlands in 1985. Until Dr Jennifer Marohasy presented a paper to the Sydney Institute in February this year demonstrating the Lower Lakes formed part of the Murray River estuary before the construction of 7.6km of barrages in the 1930s, the barrages had been conveniently ignored in the debate about the allocation of water from the Murray-Darling Basin for the Lower Lakes.
There had also been no reference to the consequential destruction of a native mulloway fishery and the creation of a terrific environment for the notorious pest the European carp as the environment changed from estuarine to predominantly freshwater. The Australian government website about the Ramsar listing acknowledges the Lower Lakes, Alexandrina and Albert, are comprised of fresh to brackish-saline waters and were part of the estuary before the construction of the barrages.
“The ecological characteristics of the area have been altered significantly since extensive water extraction from the Murray-Darling Basin commenced in the 1800s and barrages were constructed to separate the lakes from the estuary in the 1930s,” it says.
The Murray Darling Basin Commission’s Living Murray discussion paper stated: “The barrages have also changed the ecology of the lower lakes, reducing the estuarine area of the Murray to 11 per cent of its natural size.”
Historic link shared by Murray-Darling Basin and carbon tax
BY: JOSEPHINE KELLY From: The Australian April 13, 2012
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I notice that Josephine Kelly is a barrister. She should note that in Queensland there are two relevant Acts a) Professional Engineers Act Queensland that makes it a criminal offense for anyone including the crown providing an engineering service (which includes engineering data) when not registered. b) the Public Service Ethics which makes it an offense to aid or condone breaches of the law. The Queensland Government can not take notice of so-called scientists and unqualified persons in the employ of the Commonwealth Government who maybe supplying an opinion about engineering data and calculations such as rainfall, run-off and river flows. One should note the publication “Australian Rainfall and Run-off” issued by the Australian Institute of Engineers.
It is time to sort out technical issues which have an engineering content (including the carbon tax) in a Royal Commission or in court where witnesses are subject to perjury.
Uh! Oh! I should have put the Institution of Engineers Australia (IEAust), for some reason I had in my mind AEI which is Australian Institute of Energy.
For a lawyer the author is poorly across the facts, principally the water is not being recovered from irrigators only for the lakes and Coorong but the broader environment of the basin. The MDBA reports indicate that the Coorong (not the lakes) is only a driver of water needs in anything like that – in fact it is targeted to be delivered water in only 9 years of the 114 modelled by the MDBA ie about 8% of years. Hardly representative as indicated by the author because upstream assets are driving the recovery volume – the lakes and Coorong receove the majority of water they need in those years to maintain them from upstream return flows as nature intended
Return it to an open barrage system and all you will have is another Peel Harvey estuary – a stink hole if ever I met one where conditions change so quickly and nutrients are so high all you have is ulva or sea lettuce – no nirvana of the environment even after they dredged a massive channel to improve water flow ala west lakes in Adelaide which has a pipe that circulates seawater into it. A big flow freshens the lake and everything that established there during a drought dies and turns the place into a stink hole
The issue at stake here is what sort of an environment do we want in the basin including SA not just in NSW or Victoria because that’s all it appears the author is interested in as is Dr Marohasy.
You cannot have a functioning estuary without freshwater because the answer is not more salt water it is freshwater – connectivity can be improved but removing the barrages will actually do more harm than good.
@sebastian
Amazing!
I wonder how people put up with that “stink hole” before the barrages?
Sebastian,if there are a billion malnourished people in the world why are we taking water away from irrigation at all ?Surely it is better to make the environmental improvements that can be made without taking a renewable resource away from sustainable production, isn’t it ?
Sebastian
Thanks for your contribution. You raise important issues. I have attempted to address them in a new blog post here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/04/why-the-lower-lakes-are-important-to-the-proposed-basin-plan/
And as regards the Coorong, until something is done about current management of the barrages and Bird Island very little water from the Lakes can get through to that system. But historically, you would know, that much of the freshwater to the Coorong was delivered from the South East and Salt Creek, not from the Murray Darling Basin?
PS Went to do a quick google search for info on how water that used to drain from the South East to the Coorong has been diverted directly out to sea… and stumbled upon this interesting website with info on some of the bungled attempts to redirect water back to the Coorong…
http://www.usedrains.org.au/media_reports.htm
There is important research underway at the University of Western Sydney. It is about CO2 uptake in eucalypts. The key message is that increased CO2 reduces the water uptake of the tree, From the M-D point of view, this means that a higher CO2 level will mean more runoff from the forested highlands into the rivers. Also, there will be more water going into the charging areas of the Great Artesian Basin. From the second driest continent’s point of view, increased CO2 might net out to be positive. It would be interesting to have the Wentworth Group recognise this.
Dave what is sustainable about inefficient irrigation? Its not that irrigators should not be able to irrigate, its about making sure that irrigators are accessing the water that can be shared to ensure a healthy environment not just in NSW or Victoria but also in SA ie so enough water supports the environment of the entire basin.
USED flows, yeah they are a complimentary source of water for the Coorong but not the only source of water because they do nothing to affect the water level in the Coorong. Water is still required from the Murray Darling Basin to affect water levels in the Coorong and support the ecology sought there – its not all about salinity in that part of the Coorong and Lakes environment, salinity is only part of the story.
Read some of the hydrodynamics reports put out by CSIRO and you might learn something about Coorong hydrodynamics.
Improving management of the barrages and how they are operated – in the broad concept we agree. How that is achieved is where we disagree because opening the barrages to allow salt water in to fill the lakes during drought will destroy an important environment – one that was the 4th most important waterbird habitat in Australia – the most important southern wetland, more important than any other Basin wetland.
If you care about the environment of the Basin Dr Marohasy how about you concern yourself with ensuring the Coorong is supported by the way the barrages are operated and Basin water is provided and worry less about opening them to sea water because the estuary needs more freshwater from the Basin not sea water
I read your article on the Murray Darling Basin in the Weekend Australian 22-23/12/12 and was astonished that the cost of the Gillard government plans will exceed $12 billion dollars. I am a strong advocate for redirecting excess water from the Lake Argyle area by pipeline into the Basin. The Trans Alaskan crude oil pipeline was completed on 20th June 1977 through hell and high water at a cost of about $8billion over 1300 hundred kilometres of rugged terrain in a little over two years. Instead of destroying the livelyhood of farmers, wasting taxpayers money on irrigation buybacks and reducing our capacity to grow food for ourselves and the starving sections of the world community at a reasonable cost, the government could have solved the problem by tapping into our almost unlimited water resources in the North.The ecology of the Murray river system could have been fully restored and Adelaide would have all the water it could ever use.