Dear Editor
Last week, in the first week of July, the Millewa Forest’s largest regulator, called the Mary Ada, was opened to provide the forest with more ‘targeted waterings’.
The forest will get yet another drink, this time using environmental water because, unlike last summer, authorities do not have irrigator water to waste like they did last year.
In the 2018-19 season the forest flooding lasted 141 days, and during this period the amount of water that exceeded channel capacity totalled 802,000 megalitres. This was not allocated environmental water, but rather water that was taken from irrigators and unnecessarily and unseasonally flooded into the forest.
In doing so, authorities ignored the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) ‘objectives and outcomes’ document regarding “delivering within constraints” and “not impacting state water allocations”, under which the MDBA is supposed to operate the river.
As a further consequence this decimated the Murray Valley’s chance of an allocation, increased the price of temporary water beyond the reach of many businesses, and eliminated the chance of carryover water being available.
The reality which too many in government and bureaucratic positions refuse to acknowledge is that there are many losers from this Basin Plan, including the environment which ironically is being damaged with out of season environmental water.
Constraints are getting tighter as the river has lost 650GL of in-channel capacity and the Chokes shallow out from the excessive and insatiable downstream demand.
Just this week there has been a River Management report in which the MDBA pats itself on the back for heightening the South Australian lower lakes and reducing salinity in the northern lagoon. Yet, as has been highlighted by media this week, those lakes were traditionally estuarine, as proven by Professor Peter Gell’s most recent report, published by the CSIRO on June 20.
Prof Gell goes into detail about misinformation, misquoting and the false science that has become entrenched within our society to create the all-out train wreck called a Basin Plan that we have here today. Prof Gell backs up the unequivocal fact that the lakes were estuarine, as reported in 1994 by Barnett. As someone said to me recently, the great thing about diatoms is that they do not lie.
So I ask: Why, since a Commonwealth science centre has published Prof Gell’s findings, is the MDBA still ignoring the historical scientific fact that the lower lakes are estuarine, not fresh? And why do governments allow this to occur while the environment, economy and our social fabric suffers in the bush?
The MDBA continues to flush water out to sea, including 8,000ML last week with a further 500,000ML to flow down to South Australia, much of which will evaporate or flush out the north and southern lagoons of the Coorong, even though the lakes were naturally managed by tidal action and the Coorong by South Eastern South Australian groundwater, a pittance of which has been recovered with their recent drainage works. This is said to re-divert 26GL of what once was, based on estimates, roughly 4000GL.
Prof Gell’s report has also confirmed what communities have been telling the Government, Basin Officials Committee and the MDBA for years, that the science is written to meet a political agenda rather than the genuine needs of the environment and the Basin communities.
The evidence proves that the Basin Plan in its current form is built on false science. The Plan should be reviewed immediately with the objective of preserving Australia’s long-term food security for the next 50 years. This may require the prompt installation of Lock Zero and automation of the barrages, which could save a massive 850-110GL per year.
Our newly re-elected, local member Sussan Ley, as the Minister for Environment, has to opportunity to use Prof Gell’s report to rectify this environmental disaster.
State Water Ministers Melinda Pavey and Lisa Neville should be working with David Spiers and federal Water Minister David Littleproud to restore our region’s reliability as a food producing area that would safeguard Australia’s long term food security by setting up this region for the next dry spell through effective management of our most precious resource by amending out-dated policy, building new infrastructure and prioritising meaningful community engagement.
Yours faithfully
Darcy Hare
Wakool
