CSIRO, Australia's largest scientific research organisation, released a two-part report* last Friday on 'water' in the Murray-Darling Basin, a region often referred to as the food bowl of Australia. The icon within this region is the Murray River and salt levels in the river have long been considered an indication of the region's health and the sustainability of Australian agriculture.
The report reiterates "salinity ... as one of the most serious environmental issues in the Basin" and suggests that "stream salt loads" and "stream salinity" will increase. Part 1 of the report is 48 pages and Part 2 is 29 pages but there is only one graph of Murray River salinity and it was drawn in 1988, some 16 years ago. It is computer-model generated and interestingly begins in 1920 even though first recording were not made until 1938.
In my opinion it is both sad and deceitful that the CSIRO won't show us what salinity levels really look like but instead keeps republishing a dated and misleading graph from a computer model.
Would you like to see what salt levels are really like?
Here's a plot of yearly average stream salinity from when recordings where first made in 1938:
This graph is based on data that I recently requested and received from the Murray Darling Basin Commission.
A plot of all the daily readings for Morgan, a key site as its just upstream from the off-shoots for Adelaide's water supply, also shows a downward trend for the last 20 years:
This data was also sourced from the Murray Darling Basin Commission and the last data point represents last Friday, 19th May 2006.
It's good news that salt levels are falling. But no-one will acknowledge it!
A common 'excuse' given for the low stream salinity levels is that it's been so dry, "It doesn't rain so much in the Murray-Darling Basin anymore". But hang-on, a plot of rainfall for the Murray-Darling Basin shows no recent drop-off. The last very dry year was 2002 and that wasn't unusually dry in the scheme of things.
The graph is from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, click here.
Perhaps so much funding is dependent on the perception that salinity is a continuing problem, and so many reputations have been made on the myth, that there is almost an obligation to repeat the falsehood?
I reckon it matters that CSIRO and others keep misleading the Australian public on this issue. I reckon it matters that the federal government just announced another $500 million for the Murray River on the pretext that river salinity is a continuing problem.
* The reports are titled 'The Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin' by Kirby M et al. 2006 and 'Risks to the Shared Water Resources of the Murray-Darling Basin' by Van Dijk, A et al 2006 published by the Murray Darling Basin Commission, Canberra and prepared by CSIRO Land and Water as part of the Water for a Healthy Country National Flagship Program.
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This Sunday, Channel 9's Sunday program is planning to feature at story on the Murray River and salinity. I'm hoping that Ross Coulthart from SUNDAY will go beyond the empty rhetoric and show that the emperor has no clothes.
So if you live in Australia, watch Channel 9 from 9am on Sunday.
I've written a bit about the Murray River which can be accessed online including an IPA backgrounder, click here, and something for Online Opinion more recently, click here, and for ABC Radio National's Counterpoint with Michael Duffy, click here. I will in due course do a complete critique of the two-part CSIRO report.
Jennifer
Don't worry so much about Trotsky. Anyone who takes the moniker of a mass murderer who wants to talk salt levels accusing you of r bad things I just say ignore it.
Munn's another critter from the swamp that only comes calling (like Trotsky) when he thinks there’s a blood around- lots of it. Don't worry he "graduated" from RMIT, not MIT, his alma mater has and R in front of it so nothing else needs to be said other than he will hold a chart upside down and thinks it's right side up. He never got through remedial at that “ exulted institution” of higher learning. He disclosed his alma M on the web once.
It's the same old saw with hard lefties, when they can't attack on facts they attack your integrity. They get it from Quiggin and take it round the web.
Trotsky aren't you the least embarrassed attacking people about their integrity when you traipse around with the moniker of a horrendous mass murderer. Seriously are you that much of a freak? Have you thought of going into the circus as a freak act or something? Anyone calling himself Trotsky wouldn’t be demonstrating concerns about the moral ethics of attacking someone at a personal level.
Munn's a greenie that'll tell lies and ram people if he can get away with it.
What a class act these two animals are.
Aquatic organisms don't respond the load (gross mass per unit time), they respond to concentration (mass per unit volume). At Morgan there has been a pronounced decline in concentration in the river since about 1980, based on the graph Jennifer presented. Salinity has halved, roughly. For any organism sensititive to salt, that's a good news story. Unless catchment discharge at Morgan has doubled since 1980, then load has also declined. Page 19 of the report Jennifer links to says that salt loads have indeed declined. Another good news story.
It seems poor science to put up concentration graphs as some sort of "proof" that things are getting better or worse, at a minimum one needs to know flow volume so one can estimate tonnes of salt and not just a concentration. One would hope that someone is measuring tonnes of salt and water into the evaporation pans as part of the salt interception schemes and doing a mass balance. The arguments on both sides of this post seem less informed that average greenhouse skeptic!!! without access to good data comentrary might as well be just junk!
Is some one collecting the data needed and is it accessable? who is doing a salt mass balance? and tracking salinity and height in lots of bore holes?
PS Carp were recorded in similiar numbers to which species of native fish at the Torrumbarry Weir after the 2000 flood? (Steve M, you can find the answer in 'Myth and the Murray'.)
Thanks Schiller ... very insightful!
And, thanks Siltstone.
Steve M.,
Are you suggesting we keep the river full of water for the playpus?
It may in fact be a bit difficult creating perfect conditions for both Murray Cod and Platypus.
I'd suggest a focus on Murray Cod because there are Platypus almost 'everywhere'.
For example, if you wander up the Yarra a bit, you'll probably find some burrows in Heidelberg ... you do live in Melbourne don't you?
In fact there are even playtypus in Hobart in Tasmania and then in Queensland on sugarcane farms. They aren't that fussy in the ecological scheme of things.