The upcoming auction of the large, overseas-owned, cotton property, Toorale, provides the Federal Government with an opportunity to do something meaningful for the Murray-Darling.

Toorale, thought to be available for purchase for around $15 million, is accused of effectively choking the Warrego River as a result of its construction of a series of dams designed to divert and collect water from the river, with the ability to reduce Warrego flows from 3000 megalitres per day upstream to 600 megalitres per day on the property's southern boundary.

Simple mathematics indicates that if the river were allowed to flow naturally, environmental flows could be increased by approximately 160,000 megalitres (160 gigalitres) annually. This volume is more than three times that which will be produced by the $1.4 billion desal plant planned for Adelaide.