Darling River

Gday Tony
You seem to think that rice needs massive amounts of water, it is sown and grows much the same as wheat. It only relies on rain and is sown in paddocks.

Well Muzbry, I learn something everyday!

I could have sworn that on my many trips back and forth along the Sturt Hwy between Hay and Narrandera I often saw flooded rice fields next to the Murrumbidgee River. The long drive must have made me delusional! :-)

And don't mention what has happened, for example, to the Macquarie Marshes, which I think are a declared RAMSAR site, with the cotton growing. Huge turkey dams everywhere with their high evaporation and adjacent laser leveled, tree and bird life devoid, mono culture wastelands :-(

Cheers
Andrew

From Wikipedia:

"In an average year the station uses 200,000 megalitres (7,100×106 cu ft) of water, in a good year as much as 500,000 megalitres (18,000×106 cu ft)."

"to a consortium comprising Shandong RuYi Scientific & Technological Group Co Ltd, a clothing and textile company owned by Chinese and Japanese investors, and Lempriere Group, an Australian family-owned company involved in wool trading and agricultural property management.["

Great, so the Darling River, surrounding natural lakes and wetlands, and flows into the Murray are sacrificed for a handful of jobs, and the profits of mainly overseas investors.

Bob

Yes, the water and lifeblood for much of western New South Wales sold to the Chinese for a song. The tourism industries at Menindee hung out to dry. Likewise residents and irrigators along the lower Darling.

While visitors won't be able to catch fish (other than the dead ones trapped in the dried mud), those who service tourists will be pleased to see visitors (so long as they haven't gone broke and shut their businesses). Visit Menindee now, while there is still a town; they deserve visitors and need the now all the more.

Cubbie Station is just one ( very large) irrigator extracting Murray Darling water.
At the time Barnaby Joyce made a lot of noise about the sale of our most precious asset (water) to a state owned overseas investor, not the sale of Cubbie Station per se. Cubbie Station was in receivership prior to that sale
There has been plenty of discontent from graziers in northern NSW about not receiving natural flood flows across their floodplains as a result of Cubbie's water harvesting.
But SW Qld has had very little rain since 2012 for Cubbie to harvest any of that.
I'm not defending Cubbie Station, I just wish valid criticism's were made (such as the flood plain graziers) not people blaming Cubbie when there hasn't been any water to flow!
Take a trip in this part of the Australia and gain wider exposure than reading about one cotton farm.
Take a look at how the towns of Moree, Narrabri, Goondiwindi (to lesser extent), Wee Waa, Collarenebri have declined since significant cut backs to their water allocations (which were required), cut backs for environmental flows to various marshes in the Macquarie and Gingham marshes. But the largest restriction on their water has been due to reduced inflow to the rivers and dams

Most river irrigators in NW NSW which is the greatest contributor of water to the Darling have had no allocations for the past two years. There photos and records of paddle steamers in the Murray-Darling high & dry early last century due to poor flows, before any significant irrigation schemes. There was an article in the ABC Rural Media (which I didn't fully understand) in the past month that water was released recently from the Menindee Lakes to finish crops DOWNSTREAM of the Lakes, not upstream.
Some people seem to think there is a "tap" at the head of the Murray Darling which permanently releases a steady stream of water into it, with no variation in flow

Mark

Hello Motherhen,

I can not bring myself to facebook...

Is there any mention of Lobbyist Turnbull, Twynam and Coddlemore twineing the system back in the 80's, I remember the press where up in arms about it

It is just a back door way of opening the article without paying $8 per week for a news subscription. You don't have to join Facebook to see the page and pick up the link. I reluctantly joined Facebook about a year ago with a low key presence so I could participate in a few camping and off road caravanning type groups.

Hi Den,
Diverting coastal rivers and turning them inland to irrigate arid lands sounds an attractive idea, but in practice there are many problems as the Snowy Scheme has shown. For starters irrigated areas in Australia invariably suffer from salinity - our soils are ancient and over millions of years have accumulated a lot of salt. Add water and that salt comes to the surface where it causes problems. Also watercourses, if they are damed, still need to have flows that mimic natural conditions. The once wild Snowy River silted up after the Eucumbene dam went in so that flow was reduced to a trickle. Its taken a lot of politicking and $$$ to reverse things even a bit. There are numerous schemes for getting water to the inland that keep popping up every so often, but they seldom address these and other problems. With our current environmental laws its doubtful if the Snowy scheme would be built today.
Cheers,
Val.