I spilt my tea over a story at ABC News Online last Thursday.
Entitled ‘Murray River flows at record low', without quoting a specific source, it stated:
“The water level in the Murray River is at its lowest since records began more than 100 years ago.”
I rang a couple of friends that live beside the River last Friday and they said it still has lots of water in it.
Yet less than 100 years ago, in 1914, it ran dry.
Indeed the ABC News Online piece goes on to explain that South Australian irrigators are still receiving 80 percent of their water entitlements so there must be a bit of water still in the river.
I contacted the ABC and they replied that it may take up to four weeks for a detailed response.
I contacted the Murray Darling Basin Commission and they explained that despite record low inflow:
"Because of the weirs and the provision of regulated flows downstream of dams, water levels are higher than historical minimums.”
It would appear that the ABC has confused record low inflows with record low water levels – a significant error in the scheme of things.
The story then goes on to quote water expert Peter Cullen and South Australia’s Minister for the Murray, Karlene Maywald, lamenting the catastrophe.
But there is no catastrophe because despite the dry weather, the dams and weirs that everyone loves to hate, have served their purpose so far – they stored water when it did rain, so the river can keep flowing during this extended drought.
Picture taken of the dry Murray River bed at Riversdale on 1st January 1914 – courtesy of Daryl McDonald.
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Where's Riversdale. There is no postcode listed for such a place.
Was the photo taken in January 1914 or 1915 at the end of the 1914 drought?
Has anyone listened to Radio National's the "National Interest" on 3 September? It featured an interview with Fred Pearce, author of "When the Rivers Run Dry". The transcript is here:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2006/1730593.htm.
The interview was both excellent and very sobering. The prognosis for the Murray river and all of the world's rivers does not appear to be good, largely because of population.
So, Michael, when can we have a detailed audit of both the victims and beneficiaries. This focus on threatened species is understandable for protection purposes but where is the other half of the ledger?
I also suspect that some of the effects you describe are more attributable to site specific drainage issues rather than smoothed flows.
But when will the public sector environment managers start using something even vaguely resembling current best irrigation practice to deliver water to their paddocks instead of the incredible waste involved in imitating floods.
Build bunded paddocks, pump the water up, run it from paddock to paddock as required and start implementing some proper water use efficiency of their own.
And when will they realise that the cheapest water of all to recycle is "environmental flow"? That is, catch it downstream and pump it back up to flow down again, and again. The limit to how far it can be pumped back is defined by the market price of the alternate farming use. That is, how far can a megalitre of water be pumped at $100/ML?
"And all the conjecture on this causing some sort of disequilibrium is just that, untested speculation loaded with value judgements."
"The easiest way to knock this stuff on the head is to let the wildlife cast their vote."
(quote Ian Mott)
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Ian M, if this is untested, how can we let the Wildlife cast their vote?
I sure hope your not going to chase up some anecdote from some fishermen about his cod catch are you?
The smoothing of natural flows has been great for European Carp breeding and excessive regrowth of red gum in formerly un-treed wetland ecosystems and complete death in others. In other cases it has transfored Black Box woodlands into dense regrowth Redgum. And at the opposite end of the sprectrum, it has ended flooding of the higer floodplains, leading to droughted, saline floodplains and tree death.
Such changes have reduced the habitat for a whole list of endanged species that were previously abundant. Un-treed wetland ecosystems are what Brolga (almost extinct in northern vic)used to inhabit, open blackbox woodlands are habitat for Curlews (also almost extinct in northern vic).
There has been some fantastic work done with some of the Barmah wetlands to try and restore a more natural wetting and drying cycle, this has induced an amazing response from native fish and birds and wetland flora in the last couple of years. Mind you, this has all come about thanks to extra Murray River funding and environmental water allocations that you love to scorn.
The managers of these systems still have an awful lot of trouble avoiding the very damaging permanent flooding which comes about because the water authorities have to force too much water through the Barmah choke during Autumn to keep up with the increasing demand for water from downstream irrigators.