The $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan has struck a sand bar with delegates at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) River Reflections annual water conference hearing of massive impacts to water users, the environment and local community if no action is taken to address it.
Photo: The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper
What has caused this estimated 20 million cubic metres of sand in the riverbed between Yarrawonga and Picnic Point to be such a problem now? The MDBA estimates the capacity through Barmah-Millewa has reduced from 11,300 megalitres a day in the 1980s to 9,200 megalitres a day now.
The MDBA’s director of River Murray Operations, Tyson Milne, told delegates it’s understood the sand was largely caused by land-use practices and mining in the rivers upstream centuries ago.
Why did gold mining centuries ago only raise a problem now? How did the sand from the upper reaches get through the settling pond of Lake Mulwala constructed in 1939? And even more alarming, where have the beaches gone around Cobram and surrounds in the last 12 years? The same beaches families enjoyed for generations! Could this have anything to do with increased flows?
Photo: The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper
Could this have anything to do with massive new irrigation areas below the natural constraints of crops that use more water per hectare than cotton or even rice? Could this have anything to do with the Darling not being able to provide the historical 39% of SA requirements and the Murray wearing the brunt? Could this have anything to do with the unyielding end of system targets of a ‘freshwater’ estuary held above sea level, or the ambition to dilute the sea?
No, it was the gold miners, nothing to see here, again!
As communities watched our rivers being eroded, beaches washed away, cod holes filled and habitats destroyed, the powers that be still follow the tune of the pied piper.
What has happened to our once great nation building country? Where are the practical observational skills and robust science?
The destruction will continue as the dollars and votes play the melodic tune which leads the rats.
If you do bypass the choke, what becomes of the other hundreds of kilometres of river that also forms part of the natural constraints?
Is bypassing the choke how you get an extra 450 gigalitres down the system?
As the MDBA continues to preach of lower inflows into the basin, we sure seem busy increasing the capacity of our river to bypass our own floodplains and communities.
This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 9 June 2022.
Related story: Sand slug choking the Murray River could impact water delivery within 10 years: MDBA
