It’s been seven weeks since the election in which Labor promised it would deliver the basin plan in full.
Last week, a private jet jaunt around selected parts of the basin saw Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek doubling down on the promise.
In an ABC interview with Ms Plibersek, it pointed out a push in acquiring and delivering 450 gigalitres of environmental water for South Australia.
Ms Plibersek said only 2 per cent of the required water had been recovered so far, meaning it would be a “tough job” to have it all delivered by the plan’s deadline of June 2024.
Sadly, Minister Plibersek’s push appears to echo coalition water ministers of the past as they look to honour a plan that is neither adaptable or using best available science.
In seeking to deliver an additional 450 gigalitres to South Australia, there has been no indication on how that physically can happen or where the water would be taken from or stored.
As it currently sits, the Murray is being eroded at a rate never seen before in delivering huge volumes of water for a variety of purposes, production, environment, dilution, unregulated flow and conveyance.
Despite the huge volumes of additional water delivered to South Australia through these other mechanisms, enough never seems enough.
The Bridge contacted Water NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to obtain information on just how much unregulated flow went over the SA border for the preceding 12 months, but attempts were unsuccessful.
It was stated that unregulated flows were determined by dates not volumes, which does beg the question if you have hundreds, or indeed thousands of gigalitres, which provide the same ecosystem and river health functions, why on earth would you not account for it, instead coming after what remains of the productive pool?
Delivering these additional volumes will have to compete with surging demand from the continuing expansion of permanent plantings downstream of the natural constraints.
How do these developments continue with unabated expansion despite warnings of deliverability?
Could the answer lie in this week’s MDBA press release where MDBA’s General Manager of Applied Science, Dr Matt Coleman, managed to slip in the seemingly innocuous term ‘constraints relaxation’.
Dr Coleman said a focus of this year’s water for the environment priorities would also remain on drier catchments in the southern Basin, though without constraints relaxation – a fundamental part of the Basin Plan – it was difficult to get the water out of the river channel to connect with the floodplains and wetlands as intended by the Basin Plan.
“Once these SDLAM projects are in place, we will see a step change in the health of our rivers, floodplains and wetlands, but without constraints relaxation, river managers will be limited in what they can do to water floodplains and wetlands in the southern Basin.”
What health step change have we witnessed in the hundreds of kilometres of natural constraints?
Constraints relaxation is more non-speak for increasing downstream flows over and above the traditional levels. Will this be a handy tool for bypassing the Barmah Choke limits on downstream trade?
Another plan to continue to hydraulicly land clear the Murray? How far will they bypass the constraints before running the other parts of the river harder and faster?
Once again, the plan rolls on with decisions made on high and an attitude of propaganda rather than collaboration and information sharing.
I suppose when one body implements, oversees, reviews and funds the science, it would be hard to get any outcome other than the one they seek.
This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 14 July 2022.
Related stories: This year water for the environment will boost resilience for the drier times: MDBA; Government gets to work delivering on Basin commitments: Plibersek and Shing
