Moving water at Sydney Uni

Finally some good rain across the state of NSW. A slow moving low pressure cell is over the State and a second one will follow over the weekend. Just when the wheat crops have recently been seeded or are being sown. We better enjoy it while it last, as the Bureau is suggesting we might be in for a new El Niño and thus should be looking at less rain rather than more.

I am reading a few things at the moment and this has spurred me to dig out a topic I touched on earlier. A little while ago, Mike Young, Professor Mike Young that is, wrote another of his “droplets” and this time about changes in managing rivers in the future. I find this a fascinating topic. I also was reading a bit older paper about the connection between climate and the hydrological cycle (Chahine, 1992) and I was reading an interesting historical article about the “Australian Groundwater Controversy 1870 – 1910” (Faggion, 1994). There is an interesting link between these three written pieces which allow me to comment about how I see management of water in the future.

Last Monday the newspaper reported extensively on the impact of the lack of stored water in the dams on irrigation communities in the Murray Darling Basin and on the fate of irrigator families. This basically confirms my earlier point that any restructuring of water in the Murray Darling needs to be combined with socio-economic planning. Understanding and managing water involves also making decisions on what we want with the wide open space.

This week I have to finish my submission to the senate inquiry into sustainable water management in the Murray Darling Basin. So I was scanning the papers and the news media to make sure that I comment on the latest developments. There were a few things that caught my eye: “Irrigators keep the tap on” , “State pays $34m for Darling river water” in the Sydney Morning Herald and “pick of the crop” on landline on the ABC. That last one seems maybe not so relevant, but I will explain that this is probably the most crucial story of all three and mostly missed in the media.

Last week Thursday, Professor Mike Young visited and gave a seminar for the Agriculture and Resource Economics discipline in our Faculty (yes, I know, our website needs a major shake-up, I am working on that). The seminar mainly discussed the plan Prof. Young is suggesting for sustainable management of water resources in the Murray Darling Basin (A future proofed basin). I broadly agree with the plan, but I do have reservations about three points.

Or should I say some watery issues? This week the Senate in Australia decided to have an Inquiry into water management in the Coorong and Lower Lakes and into the long term sustainable water management in the Murray Darling Basin. I think this requires some comments from me. But I also wanted to say how pleased I was with the renewed interest from high school stundets in environmental science as indicated on the number of inquiries I got on the University’s open day yesterday (Or all of you read last week’s posting…..)

This week Minister Penny Wong was compared to Saddam Hussein by the opposition in terms of “environmental vandalism without precedent in Australian history”. This was in response to a radio interview in which the minister argued that there wasn’t enough water in the Murray Darling System to save the lower lakes.

I am glad the minister is echoing my words , and in this blog I will argue again that while buying water from irrigators is a noble cause and should be pursued, it will currently not save the lower lakes. As I have argued, flooding the lower lakes with seawater is the only possible solution. The mistakes of long past are now catching up with us and there is no quick fix. Fixing should have started many many years ago, and maybe there never actually was a possible fix, once the barrages where constructed in 1935. So if there has to be comparison to Saddam, I am afraid we all have to shoulder that title, including the Hon. Greg Hunt.

Several things are happening. The new agreement in the Murray Darling basin basically shifts all power from the states to the federal government through the new Murray Darling Authority. This announcement from the PM ensured Australia even makes in into the Herald Trib. Interestingly, the prime minister echoed my words from two weeks ago and the agreement won’t help the lower lakes , and I agree it won’t. The second thing is today’s Ross Garnaut report , which will give some gloomy reading about the future, but I have discussed that earlier

On the one hand there are continued calls to the government to immediately buy or release water to “save the lower lakes”, but on the other hand we are very worried about including petrol in the carbon tax emission scheme. Seems like a bit of a contradiction...

The news this week was full of the problems with the lower Murray and the Murray Darling system again. This was because there were a range of new studies and reports which basically told us the same old story: The Murray Darling system is over extracted and the health of the system is bad and getting worse. I believe, however, that the interesting debate is whether it can be fixed, and particularly how easily it can be fixed. Is it just a matter of adding water?

Another week with scary stories about the water situation in the Murray Darling Basin. Landline had a major story last weekend and on friday on ABC news Paul Lockyer was telling us that the outlook for good rains this winter was grim.

What can we do? This is all a bit too much... Is there a way out??