Murray Darling Basin

There is a very widely held view that we need to "restore the health of our rivers". This statement assumes that they are unhealthy, which might well be the case. However, we have just been through nearly a decade of the lowest rainfall/run-off that has ever been recorded.

Whilst this is extreme, under natural conditions it was not unusual for Australia to have very dry periods and for all of our inland rivers to periodically stop flowing altogether. So we need to be careful that the results of natural dryness are not being branded as "unhealthy". Likewise given this enormous natural variability we need to define just what we actually mean by the term "sustainability". The question asked of CSIRO to determine the "Sustainable Diversion Limits" of our rivers, seems to me to be a question which fails to recognise this variability. If "sustainable"in this sense means "annual" then the answer for even the Murray must be "nil"! We need to be very careful of using average statistics when the spread around the average is so enormous.

I believe we need to closely examine the "unhealthy" notion. What are the specific factors that indicate this apparent lack of health-acid sulphate soils, salinity, blue green algae, river red gum depletion, fish stock depletion, the ravages of carp- seem to me to be the main claims. We need to examine the truth and cause of each of these compared with natural conditions, before we leap to the conclusion that we need to extract less water. Particularly since extractions have been minimal in recent years. Perhaps throwing more water at the issue is not the solution?

Water

Letter sent to The Australian 24th October,2010
Your lead story-After the dry,here comes the overflow,Weekend Australian 23rd October-accurately reflects the joy of again having good flows into the Macquarie Marshes. Unfortunately the joy is spoilt by politically correct references to "government water buybacks" and an emphasis on conflict between irrigators and "marsh graziers". The reality is that over the last ten years both irrigators and graziers have both suffered as an all powerful Nature has failed to provide water for either. Now that same Nature has provided generously for both. Why are we humans so reluctant to attribute the extremes of our rainfall to factors beyond our control?
David Boyd

Murray Darling Basin

Letter published in "The Land" on Thursday,21st October-
Peppercorn really hits the nail on the head with his thoughtful and sensible column 'Nature shows up flawed water plan-The Land October14",with, in particular, his comment on managing seasonal allocations rather than buying Licenses/Entitlements. The "Plan" is deeply flawed. It fails to recognise the massive variability of our river flows, the extent to which irrigation diversions have been constrained through a run of very dry years, and the appalling waste of water through evaporation from the Lower Lakes which have been closed off from the sea for some seventy years. The Plan effectively blames irrigators for the fact that our rivers have had drought induced low flows for much of the last ten years. The terms "license", "entitlement" and "allocation" are constantly confused in the metropolitan media coverage.

Few people recognise that if it were not for the headwater dams (Dartmouth and Hume in particular), the Snowy diversions and restrictions on irrigation diversions, the Murray would have stopped flowing altogether some three/four years ago. Surely this is evidence to the fact that we need to conserve more water in the big events by building more dams in appropriate places. 

David Boyd,Sydney.

Irrigation

Letter published in The Weekend Australian on 16th October:
In your front page today (Heated backlash Forces Murray inquiry) you categorically state that:

"The move to reduce water usage is an attempt to address the fact that states have sold irrigators licences to extract so much water from the system that not enough water is being left in the rivers to preserve the environment."

This statement is factually incorrect. No water can be extracted by irrigators holding licenses unless the use of those licenses has been triggered by the State Governments applying  seasonal allocations. Allocations are only granted after assessed environmental needs have been met. The problem in much of the last ten drought years has been that there has been no water for the process to even begin. Irrigators are being blamed for Nature's failure, until recently, to send enough rain to cause run-off into our waterways. No wonder they are upset. 

David Boyd,St Ives,NSW

Irrigation

Letter sent to the Sydney Morning Herald on 14th. October:
"Amidst all of the verbiage and political analysis, there is one point that cannot be made too often. The entire Plan is based on the false premise that the recent dryness of our inland rivers is caused by "mis-management and over allocation". Those who understand the physical nature of our inland waterflows and the the way irrigation licenses/entitlements interact with allocations, will understand that this is not possible. Licenses/entitlements are subject to seasonal allocations. When water is short so are allocations! It really is as simple as that. It is by this method that we sensibly deal with the main characteristic of our inland rivers-their  massive variability."

Irrigation

Letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday 11th October-
Paul Myers cuts through all the political correctness to the facts. Our rivers flows are massively variable as a result of our notoriously variable rainfall. We have been through a ten year drought with the lowest run-off in Australia's recorded history. Recently the situation has reversed as it has always done in the past. Pity we didn't have the infrastructure in place (read dams) to conserve more. As the floods descended last month the residents of Shepparton would have been delighted to see some upstream flood mitigation in the form of greater dam capacity!
David Boyd St Ives

Irrigation

Now this article from today's SMH is worth repeating. I couldn't have said it better myself!

You can't pay to save the environment if rains fail

Paul Myers

October 9, 2010

THERE is one word that will fix the water problems for which the Murray-Darling Basin Authority believes, incorrectly, it has found the solution: rain.

There is another far more contentious word that would eliminate the claimed need for irrigation water cuts and make more water available to grow food: dams.

And there is a third word that explains why water use has become such a contentious issue: perception.

These three words are the explanation and the answer to eastern and southern Australia's water problems. But don't expect a fourth word - reality - to hold sway in the final basin water plan.

The reason the Murray-Darling Basin's river systems got into strife was a decade of record-low rainfall, not farmers' water extractions. The public perception is otherwise: farmers are widely viewed as having been irresponsibly taking water while the rivers dried up; moreover, once they are stopped from pumping water, the rivers will be automatically "fixed".

How wrong can you be? Irrigators are able to access water only when river flows reach prescribed levels. Little or no water flow means no allocation, as rice and cotton producers know so well. Occasionally, even when rivers flow strongly, farmers are prevented from taking water in deference to the environment.

But has all this "saved" unallocated water made a difference? No, because the water didn't exist and there was no "extra" water to go anywhere, anyway.

A prime example is the much-vilified Cubbie Station in south-west Queensland. This year it has been able to fill its water storages and is about to plant 22,000 hectares to cotton - without a public outcry. Why? Because in a big rainfall year there is plenty of water for everyone; in dry years the water simply can't be extracted.

Quite simply, buying farmers' water entitlements won't fix a problem that the irrigation licensing system didn't create. Rivers rely entirely on run-off and controlled releases from dams. In an average year, if there is such an occasion, there is 21,000 gigalitres of run-off in the Murray-Darling Basin - almost twice the amount of water farmers are entitled (licensed) to extract when there is full allocation.

But in big rainfall years, such as 2010, a million gigalitres of rain can fall across the basin, producing far greater run-off than can be used.

In years like this, water flushes down rivers and excess quantities are held in headwater and other dams.

It is a lesson that should be heeded, because if the several billion dollars to be spent buying farmers' water entitlements was allocated to building one or more headwater dams, food production would be enhanced rather than constrained, there would be more irrigation rather than less, the environment would be protected and the public would receive a return on its investment.

If there is one villain in the water debate it is evaporation. When the water reaches the lower lakes of the Murray fully 50 per cent evaporates. This is precisely what will happen if the water plan is adopted.

Climate Change-Carbon Demonisation

The science of climate change/global warming is most certainly not settled. In recent months we have had:-

• the revelations of the "climategate" emails
• the very balanced Review Committee of enquiry into the IPCC's alarmist reporting
• the revealed gross exaggeration of the Himalayan glacier melting claims
• the back-off from an extreme alarmist position by the highly respected Royal Society of the UK.

Locally (in Australia) we have had our own Productivity Commission's debunking of the alarmist nature of the Stern Report to the UK Government, chiefly through the use of widely criticised, excessively low, discount factors; and the beautifully expressed paper by David Smith explaining the essential nature and value of carbon to mankind's welfare. 

Notwithstanding these developments and the fact that anything Australia does would, in any event, have negligible impact on global atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, we now have the Gillard Government establishing a Committee of "true believers" to determine the best means of putting a price on carbon! 

What a strange world we live in. 

Banjo Paterson

The Banjo is not famous for his philosophical input. However, I have long been attracted by his poem "Come-By-Chance" from which the following extract is taken-

Though we work and toil and hustle in our life of haste and bustle,

All that makes our life worth living comes unstriven for and free;

Man may weary and importune, but the fickle goddess Fortune

Deals him out his pain or pleasure careless what his worth may be.