The Bureau of Meteorology chart below indicates the areas of Australia that can be officially classed as drought-affected on the basis of rainfall deficiencies over the last three years, as per precise definitions.
Why Canberra must move on Cubbie and Murray-Darling control
Monday, 17 August 2009
The de-facto demise of Cubbie Station should give Australians no cause to grieve.
For the last decade, massive surface-water and river diversions on Cubbie and other large irrigation properties have been impeding the natural flow of water across the floodplains and headwaters of the Darling, disconnecting this water from the river and, as importantly, from its groundwater storages. Natural underground reserves are the blood-bank of the river, sustaining the Basin and its communities during drought, which is and always will be a natural occurrence in this region.
Is it time to reconsider the Western Rim Proposal?
Thursday, 13 August 2009
The current ecological vandalism that is the construction of what the State Government terms the Clayton "regulator" but what is in effect a dam across the lower Murray, must bring tears to the eyes of anyone who truly cares about the future of this iconic and vital river.
To make matters worse, there has been a dire prediction that the
level of the Murray below Lock 1 at Blanchetown could drop to almost
1.5 metres below sea level over the next few months: [read article]
The plight of the Murray is graphically illustrated by the image
of the nearly-completed and much-criticised regulator,
recently circulated by the River, Lakes and Coorong Action Group with the
statement that “we are bearing witness to the end of the Murray”.
Fair Water Use considers one of the most pressing issues, of the many which comprise the Murray-Darling crisis, to be the severe degradation of the Lower Murray Lakes and the Coorong. Years of inaction have allowed Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert to decay to such an extent that an increasing body of opinion believes that they cannot realistically be preserved as predominantly freshwater ecosystems in the long-term.
FWU has received correspondence insisting that we cease our criticism of the cotton industry in Australia.
However we feel that this component of the campaign should be continued for two reasons:
Firstly we believe that the environmental impacts of the activities of the cotton sector are totally unacceptable, and secondly because only a fraction of the industry is actually Australian-owned, and therefore much of the profit generated by these damaging enterprises heads overseas together with the virtual water contained in the product.
