Some years ago an irrigator in the Macquarie Valley explained to me that they had been giving back water for years as part of negotiated and then renegotiated water sharing plans.
He then asked me how much more water I thought the environmentalists would be asking for, before they had enough water for the environment.
My considered reply was that as long as irrigators took any water from the river they would be a target. I believed it did not matter how much or how little water he took, it was that he took any water at all that was the issue.
When a level of two percent water extraction from the Fitzroy River in Western Australia was proposed a few years ago, this was considered too high.
In Far North Queensland it is accepted that no water at all be harvested from rivers because they are known as ‘wild rivers’.
In southern Australia water must be given back to the environment because levels of extraction are generally considered too high whether this represents five or 35 percent of stream flow.
In short, there is little or no community support for irrigation.
Yet, combined with the use of the best crop varieties and appropriate fertiliser and pesticide inputs, irrigated agriculture is an efficient, reliable and sustainable way to produce food.
Globally world food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and the prices of most food crops are at a record high.
Meanwhile, the Australian government is hell-bent on entering the water market and purchasing water from irrigators on the Murray River or its tributaries to send to South Australia.
New federal Water Minister, Penny Wong, has been claiming the water is for the river, but water levels in the main channel of the Murray River have remained high despite the drought all the way to the lower lakes.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) claims more water is needed for the Murray’s mouth, but if it was really concerned about the river’s mouth it would insist the barrages be opened to let the water run from the lower lakes out to sea.
In short, the Australian taxpayer is about to spend billions of dollars to buy back water, mostly because many environment groups don’t like irrigated agriculture.
This article was first published by The Land.
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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him." Tolstoy via Jim.
It would also seem to be the case, Motty, that Adelaide residents have no intention whatsoever of paying for all that evaporated water from the lakes which is still taking place as a consequence of their past mistakes.
You can support an awful lot of farmers with 700,000 megalitres.
There is much more to Adelaide's annual water use than the volume that is pumped along the pipe. The original purpose of the barrages was to turn Lake Alexandrina into a water storage for Adelaide. But due to its past history as a very shallow tidal estuary the water was always going to be too brakish for human consumption.
But when they switched to pumping from further upstream at Morgan they didn't bother restoring the estuary to its former condition. And in so doing, more than 700,000Ml of annual evaporation that used to be sourced from sea water is now sourced from fresh water.
And when this volume of totally unjustifiable fresh water evaporation is added to Adelaide's annual use then they are exposed as the nations most disgusting water gluttons.
Moreover, the maintenance of this body of water that was once self flushing has now been lumped in as part of some perverted notion of environmental duty of care, the burden of which is to borne by the upstream farmers.
And steve, I was not suggesting that Adelaide have a cap on development as you imply. My view is that every city, indeed, every user that extracts water from a river system, has an obligation to first take all reasonable and practical steps to help themselves before they put their hand out for government assistance.
None of our cities have gone anywhere near meeting that obligation.
And as far as modern cities in Australia go, the precedent set by Perth, Gold coast, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne has established that a reasonable and practical step for a city to help itself in regard to water supplies includes a desalination plant.
Yes, I agree that Adelaide has much more use of rainwater tanks than most cities but they are no-where near the almost 100% tank use exhibited by rural Australians. And given the costs involved in all the options for urban water supply, desalination is now a minimum performance requirement.
This suggestion that reliance on desalination would preclude new housing development is pure bollocks. The mean household uses 250kL of water each year which, at current cost of $1.20/kL comes to only $300 a year. The cost of even 100% desalinated water would only increase that cost to $600 a year which is only a fraction of the cost burden imposed by existing planning bull$hit.
It is a cost increase to the homeowner equivalent to a once off 0.12% increase in interest rates on a $250,000 mortgage. But as a desalination plant would be integrated with the existing supply then the actual cost would be less than a third of that, about $2 a week.
But at the moment, the average Adelaide resident would rather put another bunch of farmers out of business, and forego the job creating cash flow from their produce, than part with a lousy $2 a week.
Rich,
No one could have predicted this from historical flow graphs, new records have been set on minimum inflows to the rivers. I'm not sure how this will change calculations in the future, but needless to say allocations will not be based on the same amount of expected inflow as has happened prior to this drought.
I can't agree with your thoughts on current allocation levels, if there is no water those allocations are not met. If allocations are reduced across the board then when we do return to wet years that water isn't available for use by anyone, and I would be suprised if it boosted reliability during an equally protracted drought.
I agree with Jen, high security irrigators have not understood that having an allocation does not guarantee water delivery, only the right to use it when available. Even when history has indicated 90% plus reliability.
Never has 100% reliability be touted, and for effective use of a resource nor can it be.
http://www.mdbc.gov.au/__data/page/86/water_volume.pdf
In a "one in a thousand year drought" that people are still getting allocations of 32% is quite an achievment.
Rich you are referring to the percentage of water your family is getting from its total licenced allocation? Many NSW irrigators have received no water from their licenced allocation over the last few years. So what percentage of the allocated water has been delivered along the Murray River over recent years? And what do you think is pushing up the price ... making it so "exorbitant"?
Jen the current level of allocation in south australia is I think about 32 % I have family that have orchards in the riverland in SA This amount is not enough to produce a crop unless water is bought at exorbitant prices they have had to decide which plantings to keep alive and which to let die. Large tracts of very old citrus have been left to die. Surely the only solution is to scale down, buying water rights thus even in dry times like recently there will be enough water to keep permanent plantings alive. I cant see any other solution other than letting things be in which case it may rain and everyone will be saved but will just happen again further down the track. Are you suggesting everyone should convert to growing annual crops and only plant when there is water, I guess this would be a solution but one hell of a transition.
Rich,
Can you tell me what current levels of allocation are and how much of the allocation has been delivered over recent years?
As regards farmers getting 'guaranteed water':
1. There is really no such thing.
2. Rice and cotton growers cope with this - recognising they just don't plant when there is no water.
3. In contrast further down the river there are more and more irrigators with permanent plantings, especially almond and grapes, and they have been under your illusion that the river should be able to guarantee them water.
Here's another relevant link:
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=703
This article is rubbish the government is about to buy back water because the river is over allocated. The current allocations are not sustainable there simply is not enough water during dry times to support water needs so cuts have to be made. I would think this is an issue of incompetent management any idiot with a graph of historical inflows, rainfall and the level of water extracted should have been able to have the foresight to see that this was quite likely to happen seeing as we have had similar events of low inflow in the past. The difference being there wasn't the level of water extracted in the past. Managers have been caught out because of higher than average inflows in the second half of the last century. The government needs to buy back water rights so the remaining irrigators have a sustainable industry with guaranteed water. Of course water levels along the river have remained high there are locks keeping the levels high. There is very little water in storage however. The lower lakes are as a previous poster has commented at record low levels if the barrages were opened further saline water would infiltrate from the sea not the other way around as you imply. People who rely on these lower lakes for irrigation ie Langhorne creek vineyards are in dire straits as the water is becoming even to saline for stock use and is so low it cannot be pumped out any way. If you really cared for irrigators you would not write such an obvious load of poorly researched rubbish.
Jennifer,
must have vanished into the ether.
Google scholar is a very handy search tool. You only get papers and technical books.
I said what I found wrong with your initial post. The bit about how the only reason people want to increase the flow is that they "don't like irrigated agriculture". I thought you had presented a very warped one-sided treatment.
For a complicated subject you didn't really present a compelling argument
No, I don't know hwat the water levels were. I had a quick look at something you had done, and it had some photographs of the murray from 1914?
I would trust Google Scholar results more.
Mr T.
There is nothing from you stuck in the spam filter. And if all you did was google then it probably doesn't matter too much.
There is certainly a lot of misinformation out there - you probably got the worst of it from your google search.
I am still wondering which bits I got wrong in my initial blog piece and whether you read my monograph 'Myth and the Murray' (see my first link).
I am also wondering if you have any idea what flow levels have been in the Murray River over the last few years/over the drought? I suspect you have no idea.
And for some relatively recent pictures of the river you could have a scroll down here https://climatelab.com.au/blog/archives/cat_murray_river.html
and here
https://climatelab.com.au/wiki/Water_Levels
Jennifer, a post of mine disappeared.
I had listed about 5 papers showing varying reasons why increased flow (and subsequently decreased water allowance) would be a good thing.
From reducing levels of dryland salinity to removing carp refuges... Any idea where it went?
I guess tehy're easy to find.
Just Google Scholar "Murray River reduced flow"
The point I was making was that your claim tha the ACF is just doing this because they "don't like irrigated agriculture" is poorly founded.