murray river in death throes

http://business.theage.com.au/heres-how-the-murray-can-live-20080622-2v13.html


Here's how the Murray can live

Water Minister Penny Wong sits in Canberra and prays for rain while the Murray River dies.

Water Minister Penny Wong sits in Canberra and prays for rain while the Murray River dies.
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* Kenneth Davidson
* June 23, 2008
* Page 1 of 2

SENATOR Penny Wong is now responsible for the Murray River and it's official — the river is dying. Last week a scientific report to water ministers was leaked to the press that said that either 400 gigalitres of water must be flushed down to the mouth of the Murray by October or the lower Murray would be permanently lost in October this year.

The report was in the hands of the ministers in April. The only recorded reaction of Wong thus far is that she hoped it would rain.

This was one report that should have been made available to the public immediately in order to galvanise public opinion for the radical measures that must be taken if South Australia can be saved.

I have been writing on this issue since last December. The only official response I have received has been disinformation from the Victorian water minister, Tim Holding, and nothing from Wong.

It must be said at once. The bell that tolls for the demise of the lower Murray also tolls for the rest of Australia.

If nothing is done to flush out the lakes at the mouth of the Murray, the acidification that has already partially destroyed several wetlands will eventually end up in Adelaide's drinking water.

To stop this seepage, scientists estimate 400 gigalitres will have to be released from somewhere along the upper Murray-Darling-Goulburn or there will have to be a spring deluge in the catchment area that will provide an equivalent amount of water.

Spring rains on the scale necessary in the catchment before October are unlikely. There is more than 400 gigalitres available in dams and lakes along the Darling that are reserved for irrigation and environmental flows.

Somehow, if Wong wants to save SA — which is her home — she will have to persuade the NSW water minister to forgo 400 gigalitres of water (equal to Melbourne's demand for one year).

The politics will be ugly. Wong's best bet is to spell the choices out frankly to the electorate, basing them on a risk management assessment.

On the one hand is the death of parts of the lower Murray; Russian roulette for the bulk of the SA population. On the other hand is stress for the wetlands and irrigators along the Darling. If there is agreement to take water from the Darling catchment to save the lower Murray, no permanent harm will be done, providing the upper Darling catchment gets a reasonable supply of summer rain. Fortunately, climate change appears to be favouring summer rain in south-west Queensland.

As painful as these choices are, they only provide life support for the lower Murray for a year, a brief window of opportunity for more radical surgery.

Lake Alexandrina should be cut in half, with one half flooded with sea water so that the supplementary Murray water flows — required to save the remnant lakes and prevent acidic seepage into most of SA's potable water supply — is halved from 400 gigalitres this year to about 200 gigalitres next and subsequent years.

Splitting Lake Alexandrina in half and the associated work on Lake Albert is a massive earth-moving project, but it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good: the gas explosion in Western Australia has resulted in enforced idleness in skilled people and earth-moving machinery. They could be used to divide Lake Alexandrina within four months.

At the same time, the Victorian Government should conscript the tunnelling equipment now being used on a project in the Victorian Alps with a lower state and national priority to build a 30-kilometre tunnel to connect the Upper Yarra/Thompson dam to Lake Eildon. This would take about 12 months and cost about

$300 million. This would allow 200 gigalitres to be diverted from the Gippsland side of the Great Divide into the Murray-Goulburn catchment, eliminating the invidious choices between irrigation and environmental flows along the three rivers.

Readers of this column are aware that there are a range of ways to replace the water lost from the Thompson, including supplementary dams and diversions in Gippsland, banning logging in catchment areas, exploiting Melbourne aquifers capable of providing more than 100 gigalitres of water to Melbourne and piping water across Bass Strait from the north-west corner of Tasmania .

Why won't Wong and the Brumby Government consider these cheaper and environmentally superior alternatives to a desal plant and the north-south pipeline?

Holding has claimed a Melbourne Water study has shown the cost of the Tasmanian pipeline would be $12 billion.

Can we see the study that shows the cost would be $34 million per kilometre in a relatively benign environment where the maximum depth is 70 metres? I don't think so.

The recently completed Ormen Lange North Sea gas pipeline in a far more hostile environment at depths of up to 950 metres cost $3 million per kilometre to build.

Wong wrote in April that the north-south pipeline and the Wonthaggi desal plant "have been subjected to extensive cost-benefit analysis to ensure they deliver value for money and secure reliable water supply". Really? Extensive cost-benefit analysis usually considers the alternatives as well as the environment, and if the study is legitimate, it is made public. If Wong is serious about saving the lower Murray and the people who depend on it, her government will have to display real leadership, set up a body with powers similar to a war cabinet and get on with the mega job of ensuring permanent environmental flows for the lower Murray.