The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in Adelaide today for a community cabinet meeting. Various media reports suggest there will be pressure on the government to "save" the lower lakes with a special water allocation from upstream.
As part of the meeting the federal cabinet will be briefed by the Murray Darling Basin Commission on following this advice, Mr Rudd has said, "Cabinet will then look at what further measures will be possible to reduce the pressure on the system."
Online Opinion published a piece by me this morning suggesting the solution for the lower lakes lies in opening the barrages, but saving the Murray River is a potentially more difficult proposition.
Read the piece, entitled 'Saving the Coorong by restoring its native state' by clicking here.
Yes, Helen, once one understands the true magnitude of green incompetence there is no other sane response but anger.
"the most inefficient water users, and those most reluctant to adopt new ideas, technology and innovations, are the Green movement and their captive departmental minions. Unlike sewerage or storm water recycling, water that is released for environmental flows needs no expensive processing to enable it to be used again, and again. And this capacity for multiple recycling gives it an entire order of magnitude greater priority than all other water efficiency options. We all need to get a lot smarter with our use of water but our self appointed environmental guardians have a lot further to go than anyone else".
And the clowns are not even looking in the right direction.
Ian, please think twice before linking to articles like "Snow Job ...". You could incite people to be as angry as you are. Green Pork anyone?
So the desal water will pump itself up the range using less energy than that produced by the hydro on the other side? Yeah, right.
The solution is to recycle the daily environmental flows. Divide the river system into segments and continuously recycle the same flow water over each section by pumping it back up to the start point each day. The length of each recycle section would be defined by matching the cost of pumping to the value of the water saved.
That is, if the value of a saved meagalitre is $400 then the cost of pumping that megalitre back to the start (including pipes, pumps, fuel etc) must not exceed $400. So instead of using 365 megalitres for a year of 1 megalitre daily flows, we use one megalitre 365 times and sell the other 364 megalitres to someone who will use it wisely.
See "Snow Job on the Snowy River" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5170
The South Australians are clearly incapable of using any water wisely. And will not be seen to have done so until they remove the barrages and make a proper investment in desalination for their own use (a reasonable step to help themselves).
damn - it didn't post my rolleyes
don't worry - an alternative plan has been launched
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24197106-11949,00.html
It should also not be forgotten that the South Australians have already had a significant increase in their water allocation by way of the increased environmental flows that have been released over the past few years.
The irrigation cap has been in place in NSW since 1995 and since that time there has been a significant change in the storage regime in the major dams.
Prior to 1995 there was a much greater portion of total flows captured in the major storages and retained for future use. But since then a larger portion has been released as environmental flows throughout the year. And that has left a much smaller volume available as "water of last resort".
This means that the entire system has undergone a policy shift that has seriously reduced the length of the drought that it is capable of dealing with. And much of those earlier flows can now be seen as pure environmental indulgence.
Some flows were well in excess of what would have taken place under natural conditions. These flows operated more like a water equivalent of an "income equalisation scheme" where the seasonal fluctuations were smoothed out in the mistaken belief that a healthy natural system involved constant flow.
Students of hypocrisy will also be interested to note that the South Australians had no qualms about accepting these indulgent flows at times and places that were only made possible by the very storage infrastructure that they now complain of.
And the fact that they now want to drain the very last drop from anyone who might have saved their water for just such a contingency as this one puts them beneath contempt.
The South Australians have ruthlessly stacked the entire Murray-Darling policy infrastructure like a virulent parasite or carcinoma. And they have demonstrated a willingness to take and take from the system right up to the point of death.
The barrage must be breached and the social and political cost of water confiscation must be raised significantly. And if government will not breach the barrage then ordinary people must do it for them.
Well Hissink, I hope you have read the above. Violence you ask? Pfffttt! But of course Bird gets threatened with expulsion, although his comments manage to stay put. What a charming very best emvironmental blog in the world this is. Does Jen proud.
"Thanks Jen. So how did the Dutch manage it?"
The Dutch were out claim land from the sea not turn salt water lakes into freshwater ones in an often drought stricken land.