GOOD NEWS ON LAKE MENINDEE

What a wonderful sight! Water is now pouring into Lake Menindee after the gates were opened connecting it once again to the Darling-Baaka River. 

With water in the lakes, invertebrates will hatch, fish will breed, birds will arrive and the lake will be once again teem with life. The local community and Barkandji will enjoy the lakes and tourists will arrive to revive the local economy.  

This is partly thanks to everyone who supported the campaign to stop the reconfiguration of the Menindee Lakes. The government had planned to do engineering works to cut off the lakes from the Darling-Baaka River in the name of “efficiency”.   

The outcry from the community forced the government to pause those engineering works and open the gates to Lake Menindee to let it fill with flood waters from Queensland and northern NSW.   

Even though the Menindee Lakes have been given a reprieve, this incredible ecosystem will remain under threat until the government promises to abandon the engineering once and for all.  

You can be sure that the Nature Conservation Council will never rest until the lakes are saved and our rivers and wetlands get the water and the protection they so desperately need. 

This means limiting irrigation upstream to sustainable levels to restore natural flows along the Darling-Baaka all the way to the Menindee Lakes and then on to the confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth.  

It also means opposing unsustainable floodplain harvesting licences where water is diverted from our waterways into private dams. 

Jane MacAllister 
Water Organiser 
Nature Conservation Council  

 

FOUR CORNERS EXPOSES MURRAY-DARLING BASIN WATER SCANDAL

On July 24 ABC TV investigative program Four Corners screened an expose of rorts and illegal practices happening in water extraction in the Murray-Darling Basin in north-western NSW and elsewhere along the Basin.  These actions are torpedoing the Murray-Darling Plan which was developed to improve the health of the river systemas well as ensuring a fair allocation of water to irrigators along the Basin.  What is also of concern is that there is a strong stench  of corruption about  this matter. 

The Four Corners program is  Pumped:Who is benefitting from the billions spent on the Murray-Darling?

There have been very strong reactions to this expose around the nation as well as calls for an independent inquiry.

Following the program's screening, the peak NSW environment group the Nature Conservation Council of NSW issued the media statement printed below.

 

NATURE CONSERVATION COUNCIL OF NSW

Berejiklian must remove Nationals from resource portfolios and order an ICAC inquiry 

The Nature Conservation Council and Inland Rivers Network are calling on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to remove National Party MPs from natural resources portfolios and refer the issues raised in last night’s Four Corners report to the ICAC for investigation.

Four Corners found serious maladministration by managers of the Department of Primary Industries (Water) in the allocation and enforcement of water licences in NSW, and of compliance actions in the state’s northwest.

“The rules governing water sharing in NSW have been manipulated to favour a few big irrigators at the expense of the environment and downstream communities,” Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski said.  “This is an absolute disgrace.

“The government has turned a blind eye to illegal behaviour like meter tampering water theft. This scandal has happened on the watch of National Party Ministers who must be held to account for their mismanagement of one of the key natural resource agencies in NSW.

“Premier Gladys Berejiklian should remove National Party Ministers from natural resources portfolios and refer these issues to ICAC for a full investigation.

“The ecosystems along the whole length of the Murray-Darling are declining because too much water is being extracted.

“Waterbird populations in parts of the Murray-Darling have declined by more than 80%, and we have lost 90% per cent of the Basin’s floodplain wetlands. This can’t go on.”

Inland Rivers Network spokesperson Bev Smiles said: “We’ve taken far too much water out of the Murray-Darling for far too long. Mismanagement and overuse of water revealed last night are damaging the Murray Darling’s life support systems and must stop.

“The National Party has overseen possibly the biggest theft of water in the state’s history. They have been captured by a small lobby of big agribusiness irrigators who are putting their commercial interests ahead all other users and the environment.

“Putting the National Party in charge of natural resource management portfolios was never going to end well. Now we have the proof that the irrigation industry in NSW has a powerful and unhealthy relationship with bureaucrats and political leaders. This has led to poor water management for the health of rivers and the weakening of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

“If this is not criminal, it is morally reprehensible. People want the government to bring our rivers back to health, not give public resources to large private companies.”

MORE WATER NEEDED FOR MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

The draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan was released for public comment late last year by the government instrumentality the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA).  This followed the abortive draft , released a year earlier, which was withdrawn by the federal government following intensive lobbying by the irrigation industry.

The irrigation industry is once again noisily opposing the new draft, claiming that it proposes too much water for the environment.  This is despite the environmental allocation under the new draft being reduced to 2,700 gigalitres. 

The current Draft Plan is woefully inadequate.  Given the billions of dollars to be spent with the aim of improving the health of this vital river system, the Australian community will not be getting the result it is paying for if the current draft is accepted by the parliament later this year. 

What are the major problems with the Draft?

Firstly, the water to be allocated to the river is inadequate.  Scientific studies have indicated that between 4,000 and 7,600 gigalitres are required for there to be any hope of improving the health of the river.

Secondly, the draft provides for a 2,600 gigalitre increase in groundwater extraction.  This is folly considering the lack of knowledge about which underground aquifers are connected to rivers and wetlands within the Basin.  This extraction could undermine any gains made through reducing surface extraction.

Thirdly, the draft does not consider the likely impacts of climate change. Predictions indicate the available water in the system could be reduced by up to 37% by 2030.  With no planning for this, it is inevitable that the environment will once again miss out – with river health further compromised.

Irrigators opposed to returning reasonable flows to the river system are ignoring the fact that, in the long term, their industries rely on a healthy river system.  And irrigators are not the only stakeholders in this matter.  Tourist operators, floodplain graziers and the entire Australian community have an interest in a healthy Murray Darling.  And so of course do the voiceless – the species of flora and fauna which depend on the system for their survival.

Comments on the Plan are due by 16^th April 2012.  For further information on submissions and the MDBA planning process see the Murray-Darling Basin Authority website.

  

 - L Blain

This post in a slightly shorter form was originally published in "Voices for the Earth"  on the Environment Page in The Daily Examiner on 2oth February 2012.

EARTH MATTERS Monday 21 November

The Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition and Clarence Environment Centre run Earth Matters, an information session on environmental issues, every two months.

The next Earth Matters session Nature in Crisis – the Murray-Darling and the Pilliga is at 5.30 p.m. on Monday 21 November.  Carmel Flint will discuss two important issues – threats to Murray-Darling Basin ecology and the impact of a coal seam gas  project in the Pilliga woodlands in the central west of NSW.  Carmel's presentation on the Pilliga illustrates clearly the problems associated with coal seam gas mining and exploration while her presentation on the Murray-Darling and its ecology highlights the importance to all Australians of  returning this river system to good health before it is too late.

The venue is the staffroom, Grafton Primary School in Queen Street, Grafton.  All welcome.  Further information – Stan on 66449309. 

The presenter Carmel Flint has an impressive record as an environmental campaigner, particularly in relation to forest protection .  Her most significant achievement in recent years was the campaign leading to the declaration of the new Red Gum national parks in the south of the state.  She is currently campaigning to save the Pilliga from coal seam gas mining.

 In 2010 Carmel's environmental achievements were recognised  in the Clarence Valley when she was installed as a Re-Weaver of the Tapestry by the Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition and the Clarence Branch of the National Parks Association.