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Water - National News - March 2008 |
Australian Capital Territory; New South Wales; Northern Territory; Queensland; South Australia; Tasmania; Victoria; Western Australia
20/03/08 Murray lakes could be opened to the sea Chris Hammer, The Age South Australia;
19/03/08 Water too cheap in Australia: OECD., AAP
14/03/08 Patron of rivers - Peter Cullen dies By Sarina Locke, www.abc.net.au/rural
Waste National 05/03/08 Cut drought aid to farmers, Rudd told Darren Gray, Canberra< The Age
State News 03/02/08 Garrett slammed in dredging appeal Peter Gregory, The Age Port Phillip
Chris Hammer, The Age
March 20, 2008
A MEETING of state and federal water ministers in October appears likely to consider drastic options for the freshwater lakes near the mouth of the Murray River, including abandoning them as a source of irrigation or opening them to sea water.
The ministerial council asked the Murray-Darling Basin Commission earlier this month to draw up risk-management strategies for lakes Alexandrina and Albert.
Asked if it was likely one of those options would permanently change the quality of lake water, commission chief executive Wendy Craik told The Age: "That's a possibility."
She said: "Another one is to open the barrages to sea water. But … the pros and cons of these would have to be assessed, and the costs — environmentally, financially, and socially — would have to be assessed."
It is believed one alternative might be to purchase environmental flows to ensure the continued health of the lower lakes.
Work on the risk-management strategies will not begin until after Easter and no decision has been made on options to be put before the ministerial council.
In a drought update earlier this month, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission said the condition of the lower lakes was "grave and deteriorating".
Dr Craik told The Age it would take exceptionally high rainfall over winter for Lake Alexandrina to provide irrigation water in the next growing season. Alexandrina — the larger and healthier of the two lakes — has dropped to about 0.5 metres below sea level and salinity levels have climbed to about four times the level recommended for irrigation.
The previous record low was 10 centimetres below sea level, recorded in March 1968.
Water scientist Mike Young, from the University of Adelaide, believes a permanent change to water use in the lakes may have been factored into plans for the rest of year. He quotes projections by the the South Australian Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation, which predict Alexandrina will drop to 1.1 metres below sea level by this time next year and salinity will climb to about 10 times that recommended for irrigation.
Di Davidson, a grape grower with holdings in the Langhorne Creek wine region, said: "This will be the last year any of us will pump water from the lake."
Instead, growers want a $60 million pipeline to access water from the river at Murray Bridge, 45 kilometres away.
Professor Young said rising salinity was a big concern.
"This is like a cancer that has started at the bottom of the system and is creeping back up. If it continues, it will creep at least to lock one (more than 200 kilometres upriver), which will then threaten Adelaide's water supply," he said.
In a dry year, Adelaide draws up to 90% of its water from the Murray River.
Water too cheap in Australia: OECD
March 19, 2008 - 3:09PM, AAP
Australians must pay more for water to conserve the scarce resource and encourage investment in alternative supplies, an OECD environmental report says.
The Environmental Performance Review of Australia says the nation should achieve full-cost recovery of delivering water for urban and agricultural use.
The recommendation is one of 45 made by the OECD's Environment Directorate in the first such report about Australia in a decade.
"Water prices for urban consumers remain low and thus do not encourage conservation or investment in new sources of supply," it says.
"The potential for water reuse and recycling has yet to be fully exploited."
OECD Environment Director Lorents Lorentsen said the agricultural sector accounted for two-thirds of water use and could be better managed.
Mr Lorentsen said the national water plan introduced last year could go further in terms of pricing mechanisms.
"Water is a scarce resource and it should be priced at the cost of distributing and supplying water," he told reporters in Canberra.
"You could say that God is providing enough rain and water but somebody has to pay for the pipes and pay for the supply of water."
He said Nordic countries and Britain were the best managers of water resources among OECD nations.
The report also calls for stronger enforcement of environmental laws and responses to the degradation of natural resources.
Mr Lorentsen said the federal government's overhaul of environmental programs last week under the Caring for Our Country banner had addressed many of the OECD's concerns.
He said Australia's significant achievements included protecting nature and biodiversity, creating the "innovative and ambitious" National Water Initiative in 2004 and its new climate change policies.
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the $2.25 billion Caring for Our Country program supported the report's recommendation that the capacity of regional natural resource bodies be expanded.
"Many of the shortcomings this report identifies are those that we highlighted in opposition," Mr Garrett told a launch of the report.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the timetable she released this week for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme answered the report's call for a market price to be put on carbon.
"I see this report as a timely affirmation of the priority the Rudd Labor government is giving to climate change and to policies required to address climate change," Senator Wong said.
By Sarina Locke, www.abc.net.au/rural
Friday, 14/03/2008
Australia's pioneer of environmental flows for rivers, Professor Peter Cullen has died. He was 65.
Peter Cullen's advice to governments on the Murray Darling Rivers often conflicted with irrigators demands.
But according to his many close friends, he softened the hard facts with a mix of science, compassion, honesty, and ideas for the future.
Colleagues are wondering if anyone can fill his shoes in the environment debate.
Professor Peter Cullen just last month was meeting Australian dairy farmers in Launceston.
"So I think we need to be developing an irrigation industry that can cope with less water by lifting efficiency.....," he said.
And last year, with dryland farmers.
"We've got used to a very wet landscape in that 1950 to 1990 period ... so we have to get used to having less water, " said Professor Cullen in April 2007 at Gunning NSW.
Peter Cullen began with Agricultural Science, and for the last 20 years has worked in water, and was founding chief executive of the CRC for Freshwater Ecology. A colleague and water expert, Paul Perkins says "Well Peter's career was prodigious in natural resource management," he says.
"We know him most over the last 20 years for water, freshwater ecology and so on. But he had a lifetime in natural resource management, and he's made contributions right across the board."
Dr John Williams formely of the CSIRO worked with Peter Cullen on dryland salinity to get national action, for which Peter Cullen was awarded by the Prime Minister as Environmentalist of the Year. Dr Williams says Peter Cullen was compassionate and honest.
"We have got agriculture that is not sufficiently resilient to cope with the drought and dry periods that are part of our history and climate.
"To try to do that in a way that was saying what needed to be said while you're dealing with people's lives and history and ownership and how difficult it was. So the thing I remember most were salinity, river flows and land use change," he says.
Dr Williams says at the Wentworth group, the scientists argued for an end to native vegetation clearing, property rights for water and environmental flows, an area Peter Cullen pioneered.
"He did that at a time when there was a program going around at the time, called 'zapping the cap'. That is, do away with the cap on the Murray Darling, and Peter actually put together what I think was one of the first articles out of the CRC where he took the science and distilled it down to a short set of articles that showed how important it was to give the river the first drink," he says.
"He turned the tide in both the political areas and in the community."
He was fought until the end on his ideas about aquiring irrigation licences and he didn't shy away from criticism.
John Williams says he cared very deeply that our rivers were living things, and spoke using the richness in the science.
"He was able to articulate that rivers need the first drink, and that we've over extracted them grossly in Australia," says John Williams.
Professor Paul Perkins says Australia has lost a great science communicator and patron of rivers.
"You could do worse than rename the Murray Darling after him! His legacy will be bigger than what we've seen in his lifetime. He didn't live to see the results of much of his work, but it will come."
Peter Cullen died peacefully in Canberra hospital last night after collapsing at his home in Gunning north of Canberra last week. He is survived by his wife Vicky and two daughters.