Maybe O/T - Darling River Levels

Don't worry . The Feds have just spent millions buying some farms. Thats sure to fix it all up. And kill a few outback towns but hey, you get that I suppose.

Pardon my stupidy but there has been nil or only a small allocation of water allowance in the Murray Darling basin anyway.
This would mean that doesn't matter how much water your licence allows you only get say nil or 10% whichever the water resouces says.
You are still required to pay a very large licence fee even if you do not get any water at all.
This is to pay for the infrastructure costs or as the terms local councils use " a availability charge".
If the federal government is exempt from this charge than it must be born by other users.
Also the feds may be exempt from reductions in allowance there this reduction must be met by other users.
Better get a bit of wood to bit down on.

Honky

Hi everyone, I am not a common contributor to this forum but
I couldn't let a few mis-truths go by.

As a Queensland Irrigator, I would like to point out the fact that Queensland only uses 5% of the total irrigation water used in Murray Darling basin. Most of the queensland water ends up in shallow lakes, such as the Menindee Lakes, and evaporates.
The recent purchase of water at Bourke will do little for the end of the Murray.
The lower reaches of the Murray are also a huge evaporation pan. Man made barages along with freshwater are trying to artificially maintain parts of the river as freshwater which alternated between salt and freshwater before white man.

The other point I would like to make is that most Irrigators on the floodplain are protected by levee banks, which stops floodwater flooding our crops, but also prevents water running off our paddocks entering the river. There are many causes of the dirty water. Some of it is natural and other things such as dryland farming, overgrazing and carp add to the condition of the river.

We have had some South Aust. politicians in our area recently, and they took home a different perspective to which they came with.

People are welcome to come up to the 'good country' and have a look for themselves, instead of beleiving all they read in the southern newspapers. Perhaps next years gathering at St George will be an opportunity to get some facts first hand.

Cheers mick.

Get a bit sick of people trotting out this complete cr@# about what we should and shouldnt do in Australia
Shows they clearly dont understand the dynamics of water in the MDB. Irrigators arent sitting there with dams full of water

Theres been very little water in the catchment for the last 5 or 6 years. Any water that is extracted from the river CANNOT reenter the system so any colouring in the river isnt due to irrigators. here has been no irrigation of cotton on the Darling for some years so again they cant be the cause of the water quality problems in the Darling. These rivers regularly stop running history shows periods of years where there wasnt water availiable for stock

Generally broadacre irrigated crops operate on low security water, that is they dont get any till all other uses are accounted for. Including towns, the environment, high security users etc etc. They havent had any allocation for 5 years or more.
Sections of unregulated rivers (Qld and NW SW operated on water even below this level, they are high flow users, they can only take water once the river is in flood condition. Water authorities say when and how long they can take water for.

If these balances need alteration then so be it - make a plan to buy back the water. Problem is without water these farms (millions of hectares) are worth nearly nothing as are the towns and businesses they support.

The cost of this will be many Billions of dollars, and the cost in human terms would also be huge, question is can we afford it.
To say that a purchase of a few farms will solve the problem is simply wrong. As mentioned the politics of water in Australia is absurd, the lakes loose staggering amounts of water that could be saved except we cant interfere here due to the impacts the changes would make in these areas

Buying a property on an unregulated river can only contribute some HIGH FLOW water to the river system - keep in mind this water doesnt currently exist!!!!

Cotton and Rice dont use more water than many other crops, its just theres a huge area planted if thre is water availiable. The last few years have seen these industries nearly disappear and have used very little water.
Pastures for Dairy infact are the highest user per Ha, and return one of the lowest $$per Ml, Almonds use more water that cotton.

As a person living in Regional NSW find it amusing that people living in the most appaling display of human caused pollution to the environment- major capital cities, have a so much to say about what damage others to to their environment

Anyway - rant over, moral is comment on things you understand

JR

It is interesting the way this thread has developed into a discussion on the pros and cons of irrigation.
I initially posted this thread to indicate there was a link to see where the water was in the Darling River for those planning a trip along that area of Australia.
I find it also interesting for the attempts at justifying the practises of the irrigators.
'Only 5% of the total irrigation water of the Murray Darling Basin is used in Queensland. The rest of the water goes down to huge evaporation areas in other States'.
I have just looked on Google Earth at the size of the storage dams around various areas of the irrigation areas in the northern part of the catchment area, and many of the storage dams are many kilometres around the perimeter. Just use the measurement tool in Google Earth.
Given the topography of those areas, I doubt that the storage dams would be more than a few metres deep, which is roughly the same as the Menindee Lakes and other storage areas downstream.
I assume the hot sun that fades curtains in Queensland doesn't really evaporate any water in those storage dams in those northern areas.
I understand the implications on unemployment in the northern areas if these big farms are restricted, but there is a much bigger population down south with the same unemployment problems with the low flows and irreparable damage to soil quality with the salt.
Where I live, our rubbish dump is full of air conditioners, hot water services and washing machines that have been rusted out by salty water.
Not many people can afford to run out and get a new air conditioner and other appliances all in a short space of time.
Some environmental flow down the system is imperative to stop millions of people living in a wasteland downstream.
If any irrigators would like to invite the people going to St.George for the gathering, I am sure there would be a few interested.

Dave

Menindee lakes is a terrible waste of water but in a critical location Of the Four or five lakes would be hundreds of thousands of Acres of water when full. When I lived there, a huge portion of the water wa held in there expressly for SA supply. I would be very suprised if any of the lakes were more than 2 m deep unless full.
When the main lakes dried up in 2000, there was a massive amount of water which was unrecoverable - Gigalitres. National Parks - which manages the area around the lakes wouldnt allow earthworks to drain this remaining water.
There are also 2 lakes joined with a thin creek, if a regulator was built here one lake could be kept deep and the other drained saving massive amounts of water in evaporative losses, cost in 1999 was around 7 million, Again NPWS wouldnt allow it. something like 30000 Ml were allowed to evaporate

These lakes are under the combined control of South Australia at some heights reverts back to NSW once it reaches a cerrtain depth, and the land is managed by NPWS - what hope is there for reasoned management?

In terms of water supply for SA the Darling is considered by State and Fedral departments as unregulated and variable. Most of the water is high flow and therefore cannot be controlled, the bulk of secure water will always have to come via the Murray

JR

By the way the river levels site is a nice find and surely useful for travellers