Coongie Lakes and Cooper Creek under threat

Pete,

A similar proposal was done in 1996 for the Cooper and it was aborted.

People still blame Cubbie station for the lack of water in the southern parts of the Murray due to them growing cotton. From what i understand Cubbie has not grown cotton for the past 3 - 4 years due to the DROUGHT.
They have been using the floors of their empty water storage dams to grow dryland wheat etc during winter.

Cheers Kev

Perhaps you should pull your fingers out of your pockets to count the megalitres of water that flows past Cubby.

And do you know the answer John??

I tried to organise a tour of Cubbie station for the gathering but was unable to make any head way. So I have found another Irrigator that also grows cotton when the water is available, who is able to provide the members attending the gathering with an onsite tour of his property.

There is always 2 sides to the story ;)

The Cubbie Group Ltd total capacity is 537,000 megalitres:

462,000 megalitres at Dirranbandi
75,000 megalitres at St George


How Cubbie Station Harvests their water as Per QLD Gov requirements

There isn't much. I see Cubby is for sale now though as of a few hours ago.on the ABC

We will see if Penny Wong can do better than her normal spin and actually buy out the water entitilements. She has been paying over the odds on all her announcements before now. I wouldn't mind her slinging out millions to me on the basis of water that I haven't been able to harvest in the last ten years, which is what she has done for some. Obviously media coverage costs a bit, but really :-((

I don't have a major issue with the current water entitlements, but what I do have a BIG issue with is that they can Flood Harvest when the river reaches a certain flood height. This flood harvesting is uncapped AFAIK, which is reducing the amount of water that does reach the lower reaches of the river system.

A total ban on the flood harvesting practice would go a long way to allowing more water to flow down stream, as well as a more realistic general water allocation for all irrigators along the system as a whole :)

All our native fish require floods for migration and spawning which is inter connected so flood harvesting is not helping their cause.
What limited water we have in this country should be going towards growing food(including dairy John). Irrigated cotton and rice do not make since in the driest continent on earth. I do believe they are making headway with dryland cotton.Not the farmers fault, greedy goverments sold them the water based on 1960s river flows, which where wet years.
Cheers Pete

I am glad you can distinguish between the flood levels and the current entitlement which is dependent on daily flows. It is the daily flows that life in the river is dependent on and I thought you and a lot of EO'ers were interested in as fisher folk.

I disagree with your second statement almost entirely. The river depends on the floods in the floodplains to keep water to surviving trees, yes. It depends then on the water flow out of the flood plains, and wetlands then for letting the flows move downstream to keep the river dwellers live, that provides the daily flows.

Cubby is only one of the over users. Cubby is largely owned by a lot of Queensland's political masters, yes, I acknowledge both sides. It will be mined for it's value by them unfortunately.

Poor water allocation by the governments in NSW and Queensland and overseeing of water harvesting by those governments over the Darling System have hampered the federal government decisions. The Victorian government talks then steals water from one of the tributaries that has nothing in it, costing further billions. A small pond in the bottom of Lake Eildon, won't do much more than fill the pipe as Melbourne's entitlement

John,

Do you disagree with mine

"A total ban on the flood harvesting practice would go a long way to allowing more water to flow down stream, as well as a more realistic general water allocation for all irrigators along the system as a whole :)"

or Pete's

"What limited water we have in this country should be going towards growing food(including dairy John). Irrigated cotton and rice do not make since in the driest continent on earth. I do believe they are making headway with dryland cotton.Not the farmers fault, greedy goverments sold them the water based on 1960s river flows, which where wet years."

second statement??

As with my statement, the removal of all flood harvesting rights would allow that water to disperse across the flood plains and back into the system. Currently the irrigators with Flood Harvesting rights are sucking the rivers dry before it has a chance to even try and flow down stream, in Cubbies case it uses the flood plain to its advantage. It should not be allowed to harvest/store this water and be made to allow it to continue it's natural flow downstream.

Reducing the total water allocation by all irrigators should be done and possibly only allow them to harvest their allocation once the river has reached the current requirement that allows them to flood harvest, that way at least some moderate flow in the river system would be maintained.

Pete, I hadn't seen your comment. I am reminded by some that they actually have an ethical dilemma in supporting irrigation industries that send bulk products into export markets that are saturated. I recognise the decisions made in the 1990s and early this century based on the 1960s and 1970s. That doesn't actually excuse them though on culpability grounds.

Pete, I just wish we did have reasonable ability to store some water. We are very limited in what we can access. There are some local farmers who rely on largely local recharge annually. There is less ethical problem as it is local recharge by rainfall. We store effluent for irrigation, that is all we have. No effluent is to leave the property.

I know that some cotton is available to be directly targeted with underground tapes but that uses energy and I have seen their systems, I have been on farm doing those inspections. Then they can though, tend to use more land area to farm the given water. There is a chicken and egg there, trying to expand.

No matter, big spending by Penny has gone on water that some haven't seen in 10 years. We will just borrow more to allow her to do it again, it seems now that we allow governments to fund everything by borrowing and your grandchildren will still be paying the interest after you and I are buried. I hope they can recognise that they get some of the benefits.

Kev, you have changed what you said in the earlier reasoning. I don't disagree with "As with my statement, the removal of all flood harvesting rights would allow that water to disperse across the flood plains and back into the system. Currently the irrigators with Flood Harvesting rights are sucking the rivers dry before it has a chance to even try and flow down stream, in Cubbies case it uses the flood plain to its advantage. It should not be allowed to harvest/store this water and be made to allow it to continue it's natural flow downstream.

Reducing the total water allocation by all irrigators should be done and possibly only allow them to harvest their allocation once the river has reached the current requirement that allows them to flood harvest, that way at least some moderate flow in the river system would be maintained. "

I'll try to explain it better in the future then, cause IMHO both statements mean the same LOL

so many political owners in the Cubby owners list, just like you say. I have a sticker on the side of the LC saying "Keep your cotton picking fingers of the Cooper Creek

And ya might as well add to your list,

Spuds, onions, carrots, pumpkins, tomatoes, beans, peas, lettuce, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and the list goes on....
All of these crops use copious amounts of water, and all require regular applications of pesticides and chemicals to get a crop to market..
And all of this is ongoing...

Oh, and don't forget the apples, pears, oranges, stonefruit etc... same, same, except on a seasonal basis..

Better not forget your beef, pork, lamb, chicken.. Do you think these critters are immune to internal and external parasites and diseases?? How do you think these are treated?

At a guess, I'd say that the amount of pesticides & chemicals used in cotton production, would pale into insignificance when compared to the total used in horticulture..

Just puttin' things in perspective..........

;-))

Actually cotton has one of the MOST intensive insecticide requirements of all crops. Think of that as you buy your jeans, wherever the cotton is grown.

There is so much focus on the word chemical, without any understanding by consumers. The media is ill-informing the whole community.

People shudder at terms like nitrogen, which is the highest percentage gas in air we breath every day. Nitrogen is the measured component when nutritionists talk about protein percentage. Nitrogen is in fertilizers that are regarded as chemical fertilizers. Nitrogen is in your urine you apply to the lemon tree in the back yard. Nitrogen is in animal manure sometimes applied by so called organic farmers. Get over it get out more. I am off to get a glass of oxygen di-hydrate.

To compare cotton and rice to food production is ludicrous, and none of those food crops(except maybe corn) use any where near as much water as rice and cotton. Go for a drive outarround Griffith to see where a lot of snowy water ends up.
Cheers Pete