More news on the Murray-Darling

Pipeline plot dashed
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Green-light for Murray-Darling management bill
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Wong stays quiet on Murray-Darling bill changes
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Murray-Darling takeover hits trouble
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CSIRO report on water availability in the Murray Darling Basin

The CSIRO has just released a report on the Water Availability in the Murray-Darling Basin

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Key finding:

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The relative impact of climate change on surface water use would be much greater in dry years. Under the median 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by more than 10 percent in most New South Wales regions, around 20 percent in the Murrumbidgee and Murray regions and from around 35 to over 50 percent in the Victorian regions. Under the dry extreme 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by over 20 percent in the Condamine-Balonne, aropund 40 to 50 percent in New South Wales regions (except the Lachlan), over 70% in the Murray and 80 to 90 percent in the major Victorian regions.

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Qld 'gifts' water to Murray-Darling

Here is some positive news on the Murray Darling River.

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September 12, 2008
The Age
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Queenslanders will "gift" over 10 billion litres of water to the ailing Murray-Darling system.

Queensland Water Minister Craig Wallace said it was a gift from Queenslanders.

"Queensland is serious in its efforts to help the commonwealth save the Murray-Darling and Friday's announcement is further proof of that commitment," Mr Wallace said.

The decision comes after the federal and New South Wales governments this week purchased a large cotton farm in NSW to deliver 20 billion litres of water entitlements back to the Darling River.

More here:

Australia buys huge farm to save dying river

Here is some good news on the Murray-Darling River. The Toorale station (mainly cotton but also does other things) has been purchased by the Australian government - allowing 20 gigaliters of water to be returned to the river system.

Australia buys huge farm to save dying river

By Rob Taylor

Reuters

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An irrigation farm larger than Singapore and sucking up billions of liters of water each year has been bought by Australia's government to help save one of the country's most vital rivers from a slow death and climate change.

Toorale Station, a cotton farm covering 910 sq km (351 sq miles) in the west of New South Wales state, was sold to the national and state governments for almost US$19 million, one day before it was set to go to auction.

The purchase will allow 20 gigaliters -- equivalent to 20,000 Olympic swimming pools -- to be returned each year to the ailing Darling River, which is one of two streams flowing through the Murray-Darling basin, home to almost half the nation's farms.

"Returning this water to the Darling will begin to turn around the long-term decline of this once great river," Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said on Thursday.

More here

UPDATE: CSIRO report into water availability in the Murray-Darling River

Not looking good for the Murray-Darling (Part 3)

Here is another story on the environmental problems facing the Murray-Darling river. It is not sounding good at all. Battery acid levels ?? Say what !

Murray River 'cancer' creeps northward

Pia Akerman

The Australian
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August 30, 2008

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THE "cancer" of the Murray -- acid sulphate soils -- has spread to the river system's northern catchments in Queensland where up to 200 sites are under investigation by scientists.

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The Murray-Darling Basin Commission ordered the investigation in southern Queensland amid mounting evidence that wetlands and rivers in the north of the system were succumbing to the poisoning that threatened to overwhelm the Murray's lower lakes in South Australia.

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Pockets of acidification are also emerging in northern Victoria and along the Murray River in southwestern NSW.

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Acid sulphate soils can occur when river and lake beds are exposed to the air as water levels fall, triggering a toxic chemical reaction.

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As more than 12,000 wetlands are potentially at risk in Queensland alone, scientists have had to prioritise, targeting about 200 of the most ecologically significant sites and those close to water supplies.

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Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water's senior soil scientist Andrew Biggs is leading the investigation. He said the study had found areas of very acidic groundwater, but no site had yet deteriorated to the state of the lower Murray, where the lower lakes near the mouth of the river remain at acute risk of acidification, despite good winter rain.

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"Think battery acid and seawater mixed together, and that's what we have in some parts of southern inland Queensland," Mr Biggs said.

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"We think the potential for developing acid is throughout the whole landscape. There's nothing to tell us otherwise, and we have lots of evidence to tell us it is already happening.

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"In many of those areas, they are in close proximity to major watercourses, major rivers, important wetlands and so on, so we are quite concerned."

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Earlier this year The Weekend Australian exposed the toxic conditions at Bottle Bend in NSW, where pH levels equivalent to car battery sulphuric acid have been recorded.

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A report handed to the ministers in May warned that unprecedented low water levels in the lower lakes were exposing acid sulphate soils that could destroy the lakes by October unless urgent action was taken.

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Debate continues to rage in South Australia over whether the barrages holding back the sea at the Murray mouth should be opened to allow salt water into the lakes, or if hope should be held out for fresh water from upstream.

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More here

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UPDATE:

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CSIRO report on water availability in the Murray-Darling
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Not Looking Good for the Murray-Darling (Part 2)

Here is another story on the problems facing the Murray-Darling River.

Murray protesters demand water

Pia Akerman
The Australian
August 11, 2008

THOUSANDS of protesters gathered at the mouth of the Murray River at Goolwa yesterday, demanding the urgent release of water in upstream states to save the stricken lower lakes.

The rally was the latest action in a mounting campaign against assertions by the state and federal governments that there is not enough water that could be released upstream to make a difference for the lakes.

Issuing a call for at least 250gigalitres of water to be released for the lower Murray, Alexandrina Council chief executive John Coombe said there was more than 5000GL available in the upstream storages.

"We need help to save our communities and businesses, and above all else, we want water to save our river and environment," Mr Coombe said. "All we want is our political leaders to have the fortitude, the will, to release some of it to save the lower lakes."

The crowd of about 5000 people lined around the Goolwa foreshore and on the Hindmarsh Island bridge, booed mentions of federal Water Minister Penny Wong, who is a South Australian senator, and Premier Mike Rann, neither of whom attended.

Alexandrina Mayor Kym McHugh called on Kevin Rudd to declare a state of emergency, saying the release of upstream water was critical to prevent aneconomic and environmental disaster in the area.

University of Adelaide ecologist David Paton warned that even 350GL would not be enough to save the lakes and the internationally recognised Coorong wetlands. "All it will do is buy a little bit of time before the same problem recurs," he said.

Over-allocation of water throughout the river system was the fundamental issue.

"The recent (Council of Australian Governments) agreement did not aim to fix it quickly -- it simply put off the decisions until 2018," he said. "Ultimately what has to be provided is an environmental flow, an allocation of water that is available for the environment every year, not just in dire straits."

Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert have become increasingly saline in recent years.
The receding shoreline has exposed mudflats, which risk turning acidic unless they are covered with water.

The South Australian Government has committed $30 million to site preparation for a new weir across the Murray, which would wall off the lakes from the river, allowing barrages currently separating the lakes from the sea to be opened, flooding them with saltwater.

Holding up a dead tortoise, its shell encrusted with the castings of saltwater bristle worms, Mr Coombe said the freshwater tortoises were a symbol of the struggle to keep the lakes alive.

"This is what we're fighting for," he said.

"This is what our political leaders would want us to accept."

Source

Not looking good for the Murray-Darling

Here is a rather worrying story from the Australian about the failing health of the Murray-Darling !

Hope dries with water in Murray's lower lakes
Jamie Walker and Pia Akerman
The Australian
August 08, 2008

WITH publicly controlled water reserves in the Murray-Darling plunging to a new low, the despondency of communities on the dying lower lakes deepened yesterday as river managers warned there was no chance of transferring water within the basin.

Meagre flows down the Murray have exposed mudflats near its mouth. Picture: Brett Hartwig

As this dramatic photograph of the Murray mouth and adjoining lakes shows, drought and over-pumping of the river water have wrought more destruction in the past three years than anyone could have imagined.

The fresh water on the right side of the barrage - which for more than 60 years has separated it from the salt water of the Coorong and, beyond the silt-ridden Murray mouth, the Southern Ocean - used to be a massive series of lakes.

In recent years, however, the meagre flows down the Murray have dramatically shrunk the lakes, exposing wide swaths of mudflats, and increasing salinity and the risk of acidification.

The Murray-Darling Basin Commission revealed yesterday that public dams and other reservoirs were barely one-fifth full, when they would normally be between half and two-thirds of capacity. Worse still for struggling farmers and townsfolk at the bottom of the river, the agency dashed any hope of an emergency injection of water from upstream.

"Given the current level of storage, it's not feasible to refill the lakes by transferring water from other parts of the basin without any significant rain," the commission's acting chief executive, Les Roberts, said yesterday.

"As little as 20 per cent of any water released in the north of the basin would reach the lower lakes in South Australia, meaning that four or five times the water needed at the lakes would have to be released from that far upstream."

To the dismay of locals, this will make more likely the controversial option of flooding the lower lakes with seawater and walling them off from the river with a new weir at Wellington, where the Murray meets the lakes about 35km from the existing barrages.

The South Australian Government has committed $30 million to site preparation for the project, and is negotiating to obtain land from fourth-generation farmer Jamie Withers, 37, who is torn by the prospect of the weir across the river. "It would completely change the way we operate," he told The Australian.

For others, it is already too late. Neil Shillabeer, 61, walked away from three generations of family history when he gave up the struggle and sold his farm near Narrung, a spit of land between Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. "It's a cancer that will work its way upriver," Mr Shillabeer said of the lakes' plight.

Clem Mason, 58, is clinging on at his mixed farm on nearby Poltalloch Peninsula. He can't irrigate and the grain crop that used to go to market to plump up his income is now reserved for his dairy herd.

"What we have down here is not a drought on the land ... it is a drought on the lakes," he said. "The water is simply not coming down."

Not only has the mouth of the river visibly narrowed since 2005, but the once-brimming expanses of Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert have given way to lengthening mudflats, which threaten to turn acidic. The river mouth would be choked off entirely without constant dredging.

The grim comparison between what the lower lakes were just three years ago and their near-disastrous state today was underlined by data released to The Australian by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. In July 2005, Lake Alexandrina contained 1600 gigalitres of water. Now, it holds just 940Gl.

Adjoining Lake Albert, at 100Gl, is down from 280Gl three years ago. The Coorong wetlands, opening onto the Southern Ocean, have tipped into crisis as the lakes dropped below sea level behind a series of barrages constructed in the 1930s. Currently, the level of Lake Albert is 0.3 of a metre below sealevel and requires water piped from Lake Alexandrina, which is at -0.4m.

Scientists fear that increasingly exposed soil beds will become acidic if the lakes fall to 1m below sealevel. SA Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald says this could happen by the middle of the next year if inflows to the river do not improve, forcing the state Government to start preparations to build the new weir upstream at Wellington.

The $120 million-plus project would allow the lakes to be flooded with seawater, protecting them from sulphate acid poisoning but ruining existing freshwater ecologies.

"Every river needs a delta, a wetland," Mr Mason said yesterday. "This is the wetland for the whole Murray River and they are going to cut it off. They are very responsible for their actions, and they are going to be remembered for them."

When full, the lower lakes hold a combined 2200Gl. But their extensive surface area and shallow depth means they lose up to 950Gl annually in evaporation and seepage.

The MDBC estimates that up to 1250Gl would be required to fill the lakes and maintain levels for a year. However, only 350Gl was forecast to flow into them in 2008-09.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24146233-2702,00.html