MEDIA RELEASE

The comments ascribed to Senator Wong (Monday), in response to the latest grim Governmental report on the status of the Murray-Darling (Sunday), that the current crisis is a result of drought rather than over-extraction, is akin to a chicken farmer stating that the decimation of his flock is due to lack of eggs rather than the interventions of a fox which has taken up residence in the chook-pen. 

Is this really all that our water supremo has to offer, as the nation?s most significant waterways continue to collapse? At the risk of serial abuse of metaphor, perhaps it is time to reassign the deck-chairs on the grounded Titanic that is the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts - If only there were enough water....

The Murray-Darling requires visionary action and not prevarication. 

 Dear Prime Minister,

Whilst yesterday's news that the Cubbie Group is in major financial difficulties (Financial Review 1^st July 2008) is not in itself a reason to celebrate, given the potential impact on local employment, it is surely not vindictive to hope that this heralds the phasing-out of the cultivation of water-hungry crops in the Murray-Darling basin.

Your Government is now faced with a rare opportunity to draw a line in the sand on the issue of the Murray-Darling crisis: the purchase by the Federal Government of the Cubbie Group, and its massive water rights, at a realistic price would be more than a purely practical means of sourcing around one third of the water required to revive the river-systems; it would also indicate clearly to those invested in the cotton industry that it is time to reinvest in those entities prepared to cultivate more appropriate crops such as dry-land wheat and industrial hemp (the latter approved by the NSW State Government earlier this week).

Significant profits are there to be made in an environmentally responsible manner if appropriate agricultural activities are undertaken. Irrespective of the ecological and social impacts of cotton cultivation, the specialised, capital-intensive infrastructure required places this sector at the whim of environmental conditions: and the wind of change is blowing strong.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Ian Douglas

(Coordinator, Fair Water Use)

 Senator Penny Wong,

Minister for Climate Change and Water

Parliament House

Canberra

Dear Minister,

In common with the vast majority of environmentalists, local farmers and other residents to whom we have talked, Fair Water Use accepts that the lower Murray lakes are beyond salvage as fresh water storages and that we must concentrate on restoring the remainder of the system as effectively as possible. If new water was prevented from entering the lower lakes, the release of compulsorily acquired water from the Darling headwaters could only have a significant beneficial effect on the remaining river system and associated wetlands.

 To address the immediate crisis the compulsorily acquired impounded water would be released forthwith and a temporary weir constructed at the northern entrance to Lake Alexandrina (as previously discussed). If the estimated 1500 gigalitres were released today, construction of this weir could be completed well before water arrived from the north.

As you know, a proportion of the water would be absorbed by parched river beds on its way south, but would not be lost to the system as it would infiltrate back with time. The vast majority released would flow down the Darling and reach the Murray if man-made obstructions to flow were removed, permanently or temporarily.

Although there would be significant costs to this initiative, we believe that the opportunity cost is many times greater, if the widespread social, economic and environmental impacts of a collapsed system are factored-in.

As a long term measure, Fair Water Use is proposing that the lower Murray is contained behind a levee constructed 100 metres from the western shore of Lake Alexandrina and that both lakes are opened to the sea. The Coorong would be retained as a brackish water system by diversion of fresh water drainage channels which currently discharge directly into the sea to its east.

We appreciate the enormity of your task and responsibilities, and hope that you are able to give consideration to this bold initiative which would have the backing of large and ever-increasing percentage of the population of this country.

MEDIA RELEASE 

As reported on ABC Radio this morning:

A leaked scientific report on the Murray-Darling Basin warns parts of the river system are "beyond the point of recovery" unless they get water by October. But the federal and state water ministers will not discuss options to save the system until the Murray-Darling Ministerial Council meeting in November.

Federal Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong declined an interview with the AM program, but a spokeswoman says the Minister is concerned about the future of the Lower Lakes and the Coorong.

The Federal Government and its advisors appear bereft of ideas in the face of this impending disaster and have no suggestions to make as to how the system will be flushed as is so desperately required.

Fair Water Use (Australia) urges Minister Wong to take the bold but necessary step of using the Government's emergency powers to order the release of the water currently impounded by the cotton sector in the upper Darling, as this would provide all the water the system currently requires to avoid collapse.