OVER the last decade, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and other groups, have successfully lobbied for the environmental needs of Australia’s river systems to have a guaranteed first priority call on water. This became reality with the Water Act 2007 that not only gives environmental needs priority over industry and community, but within this category, environments listed under international conventions are given particular priority.
The Water Act 2007 imposes a legal limit on the amount of water that can be diverted for non-environmental purposes and, through implementation of the Proposed Basin Plan, will result in a significant transfer of water from food production to the environment.
The Proposed Basin Plan does not specify where the new environmental water recovered under the plan will be used i.e. which environments will benefit most. However, it is generally acknowledged that most of the water will be sent to the Lower Lakes in South Australia. This is because the legislation specifies that the new diversions limit must preserve the environmental values of key sites within the Murray Darling Basin in accordance with international conventions (i.e. these environments are first priority). The Lower Lakes are vast coastal lagoons at the termination of the Murray River that are listed as freshwater lakes under the international Ramsar convention. According to key reports the lakes are currently suffering from inadequate freshwater flows.[1]
According to the Proposed Basin Plan the Murray Darling Basin, presumably including the Lower Lakes, can be returned to ecological health if 2,750 GL is returned to the environment. But South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill has signalled that unless this figure is increased to somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 GL South Australia will launch a High Court challenge because this is how much water is needed to preserve key environments just in South Australia.
Such a legal challenge from South Australia would likely be prefaced on the Proposed Basin Plan failing to met the objectives of the Water Act 2007; in particular that the Basin Plan must be prepared to give effect to the relevant international conventions.
Indeed, given current arrangements and despite relatively large volumes of water being channelled down to these lakes, including during the recent drought, they are an ecological disaster. However, the solution is not more fresh water.
Because the Lower Lakes are Ramsar listed, the Australian government is obliged to report on their ecological health at regular intervals. In the last report the Australian government acknowledged that ‘the site’ had been in ecological decline for at least 20 to 30 years prior to listing in 1985, with the rate of decline increasing since listing in part due to drought conditions. In particular the Australian government acknowledged that nearly half of 53 key functions were described as being ‘of alarm’ and a further third ‘of serious concern’.
A key issue for the ecological health of the Lower Lakes is the sea dykes (the barrages), that have dammed the estuary. To quote Bob Bourman from the University of Adelaide and coworkers [2]:
“Originally a vibrant, highly productive estuarine ecosystem of 75,000 ha, characterised by mixing of brackish and fresh water with highly variable flows, barrage construction has transformed the lakes into freshwater bodies with permanently raised water levels; freshwater discharge has been reduced by 75% and the tidal prism by 90%.”
Peter Gell from the University of Ballarat writing in the recently published The Sage Handbook of Environmental Change has commented that the natural state of the Lower Lakes was tidal, that the lakes have been incorrectly listed as freshwater in the International Ramsar Convention, and that until their natural estuarine character is recognised it will be difficult to reverse the long-term decline in their ecological health.[3]
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[1] See in particular ‘The Murray Futures Lower Lakes and Coorong Recovery: Securing the Future: a long-term plan for the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth’. According to the plan ecological values of the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth can only be maintained if there are adequate freshwater end-of-system flows and thus the key long term management action is to secure adequate freshwater. The planning document does not specify the specific amount of water required but suggests a mean total end of system flow of 5,550 GL would result in improved management.
[2] Marine Geology 170:141-168
[3] See Chapter 27. Human Impacts on Lacustrine Ecosystems, page 595
Sebastian,
If there are a billion malnourished humans and Australia takes out of production enough water to feed ten million doesn't that mean more people miss out ? How does it work ?
Surely it's better to grow stuff and sell to the hungry markets than send fresh water to the Southern Ocean,isn't it ?
We are indeed below all of them Gav and all of those you mentioned were designed to supply our area ( and many others) with relatively secure storage. Canberra is above those structures and does not rely on them.
I'm not paricularly concerned about your atlas but perhaps you need to refer to it before you make claims such as the above?
You clearly have misunderstood how the MIA was designed and how it works and obviously you're also unclear about where it is. Maybe you should have asked that retired Leeton farmer you referred to earlier?
The 'bidgee storages are a vital resource for this area but the bidgee does not flood us. It was designed that way on purpose.
gav, old chap, I think there is a lot missing from your essential road atlas.
Gavin,
The Murray Bridge Pumping station pipeline supplies the Adelaide Hills with water and then flows into the Onkaparinga River near Hahndorf down the river to the Mount Bold Reservoir. Mount Bold Reservoir is used to top up the Happy Valley ( storage reservoir only ) as is the Myponga Reservoir in the Southern Fleurieu Peninsular which is filled by local streams. Happy Valley will become the storage reservoir for the desalination plant when that comes on stream. The River Murray at Murray Bridge had an average weekly salt level of 702 EC from the 7/01/2009 to 30/12/2009, peaked at 790 EC 11/02/2009. The Lower Lakes pumping was shifted back upstream to Tailem Bend for potable water for the Lower Lakes. A new pump station was built at Jervios to supply the new irrigation pipeline from Jervois through to Currency Creek which doesn't include the Lake Albert farmers. The salt level at Tailem Bend during the same time period above reached 1230 EC therefore to protect the potable water from Tailem Bend which also supplies the South East down to Keith it has been suggested to build a new LOCK (Lock Zero) below Tailem Bend to protect Adleaide's water supply.
Deb, I could say hot waffle but I can recognize your real problems now.
Your farming community and township is not below the major storage of lakes Burrinjuck, Eucumbene, Jindabyne, Blowering Dam and so on.
Neither is it on my "Essential Road Atlas of Australia".
No Sebastian,
The part where Gavin is correct is that we're all witnessing an obscene power play between the States and the Federal Govt for control of the approx 2% to 4% (depending on which modelling you want to use) of water that is stored and therefore fully maneagable in the MDB.
The 70% figure is the furfy in this instance because it is assuming there is a 'magic number' and also assuming that our MDB bears some similarity to fully regulated river systems in places like Europe and America.
Both of those assumptions are fundamentally incorrect.
The natural ecological state of our inland river systems is ephemeral or as Dorothea MacKellar penned a 'land of drought and flooding rains'.
The natural ephemeral wetland environment has just proved in a spectacular manner that it is perfectly capable of thriving and that it actually NEEDS the boom and bust cycles that are the NORMAL cycles.
While regulated somewhat, our river systems are not the same as those OS, partly because our regulatory systems are woefully past their use by dates and we have made some rather conspicuous mistakes (the barrages and management of the LL and Coorong being one of the most obvious but definitely not the only one).
We have had successive state and federal governments of all colours refusing to invest in sensible upgrades of infrastructure and also refusing to acknowledge that the problems we are now facing...especially that much stated 'over allocation' problem....was caused by poor implementation of regulations and policy when water was seperated from the land. Our state and federal regulatory bodies did either not know about or did not have the guts to deal with the issue of 'sleeper licences' and allowed them to be 'woken up' and traded for other purposes. I'm betting the latter is the correct assumption because those regulatory bodies were able to turn over a rather amazing short term buck by allowing those sleeper licences to be irresponsibly traded in that manner.
SA bought up a lot of those licences and they proved to be esentially empty air space when inflows got low and it was not possible to convey the water to SA. They have discovered that their 'cheap fix' has made them exceptionally vulnerable.
Jen is right that the whole water debate has been duplicitous in the extreme.
Gavin also does allude to this but he too is being duplicitous and staying faithfully 'political' in his observations.
Our politicians of all colours have used the politically popular notion of 'environmentalism' to avoid doing what really needs to be done and also to point their fingers at the wrong culprits.
Don't you find it ludicrous that we have used 'international conventions' like Ramsar to deal with uniquely Australian issues?
The reason this process is fast unravelling is that the REAL PROBLEM was not an environmental problem and also the environmental assumptions that have been used are incorrect. 'Mother Nature' has just demonstrated she doesn't need our help in the manner that is being loudly proclaimed by the current political agenda!
It was in fact the HUMAN ENVIRONMENT not the natural environment that suffered in the drought.
The lesson we should have learned is that successive State and Federal Govts have encouraged progress and development WITHOUT backing it up with enough secure access to water and IGNORING the fact that our natural inland environments are highly highly variable.
The 70% figure or pretty much any figure you would like to come up with is a total furfy because our MDB systems have zero respect for long term averaging and conforming to a model that has to fit inside a financial year, Juky 1st to june 30th.
It is ludicrous and impractical in the extreme!