The balance, or lack thereof in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has given rise to considerable angst and frustration in rural communities since the plan’s inception.

Last week, community advocates once again put forward the case for an integrated basin plan that recognised the broader environment that exists, both public and private, and the benefits or risks in environmental watering.

Currently, 4,622 gigalitres of entitlements is held by government as environmental water, and Australia’s largest irrigator, Dr Simon Banks, Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, was joined by Central Murray Environmental Floodplain Group, community representatives and Paul Madden OAM of Arbuthnot Sawmills for a tour of local farms and forests.

John Toll farms at Gunbower and started the day off showcasing the benefit of working with landholders to improve the environment at large. To date, no environmental impact studies have been completed on the removal of water from our floodplain environment by governments despite being home to many endangered species and providing vast areas of habitat.

John noticed after successive wet years in the 1970s signs of salinity were appearing and something needed to be done to prevent the ancient seabeds from being mobilised.

“We started planting trees, and we learnt very quickly about the method of planting trees,” said John.

“Historically, we had no local species trees available until the late 1980s.

“Jumping forward, we were able to get a few local guys collecting seed and start producing young trees.

“It was quite spectacular to see what happened.”

John’s farm is crisscrossed with tree lines that provide shelter for his stock but also wildlife corridors. Like many farmers prior to water reforms, excess irrigation water was used on environmental sites on his farm, such as depressions that were remnants of creek beds or lagoons. It is estimated 93 per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin’s wetlands are on private property.

As we travelled John’s farm it was evident on how important water was to the landscape with birds gathering to feed as the irrigation passed over the ground and a healthy brown snake chased its lunch.

“So far, there have been about 70,000 plants go in.”

We were discovered by the Murray-Darling Wetland Working Group; they are a group with some funds and water around them.”

In 1992, the NSW Wetlands Working Group Inc. began a mission to rehabilitate degraded wetlands and improve the management of wetlands throughout the Murray and Lower Murray before expanding basin wide in 2009.

John’s farm is now part of regular visits and monitoring with the group and John sees irrigation water as a critical part of the environment and communities.

“We are concerned about the future of our irrigation area here massively.

“We can’t stress how important it is to provide food in our irrigation districts.”

Cohuna dairy farmer, Jodie Hay, said there is a real need to tell the story of farmers and the value they play in the environment.

“One of the reasons for bringing you down here is to highlight the importance of dual-purpose water,” said Jodie.

“We’re wondering is there an opportunity to collaborate with us, use existing infrastructure and mentors, like the land managers that have decades of experience to produce win-win scenarios.

“If we look at the North Central Catchment Management area, 86 per cent is actually privately owned, so if we are talking about environmental outcomes, the section government is focused on is a small percentage.

“The importance of farmland is backed up by CSIRO data. The latest ibis tracking shows that while ibis may roost in the forest or at the rookery, they predominantly spend their time grazing farmland.”

As the bus moved on, local farmer and bird surveyor, Audrey Dickins, gave a presentation to Dr Banks on the semi-arid environments of the Gunbower Forest and the red rise ecosystems.

“You’ll find in my presentation, the data of the floods for the past couple of hundred years, and droughts for a couple of hundred years.

“The environmental water, we are told, should be on the floodplain seven out of ten years and it just doesn’t add up.

“Some of the flood history goes back to 1790. We have journals that were written and newspaper articles and Bureau of Meteorology as well.

“The figures show that in 200 years, there has been 15 major floods on the Murray River, and a total of 58 years of drought.

“It’s a long time between drinks.

“Overwatering the forest seven out of ten years will not make the plants more resilient, the opposite is likely to occur, with drought resilient plants becoming more dependent on water.”

Being a dairy farmer adjoining the Gunbower Forest, Audrey would spend every free moment on her horse exploring the Gunbower Forest, from the driest conditions to natural flood events, witnessing the floodplain come alive.

“Red rises demonstrate how vegetation survived the millennium drought and many droughts before.

“Basically, you have two different ecosystems – you have the floodplain and the red rises.

“There are two sites near Harrison’s Lagoon that show the grey box, scattered sugar wood and other wattles that you find in these areas that don’t get flooded.

“Even the floodplain, after the flood, the water is brought back to the main channel of the Murray and the temperature starts to rise, therefore the grasses and reeds and everything on the floodplain dry out very quickly.

“They germinated during the flood, they come out, drop their seed again and that goes into the ground. That’s why most of these plants on the floodplain are so resilient to dry periods.”

The current environmental water programs can see water trapped in the forest for up to seven months of the year and that has advocates like Audrey deeply concerned. To understand the issue of flow rates and infrastructure, Geoff Wakeman took to the microphone.

“Hipwell Regulator, for example, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in their 2012 plan said the Hipwell Road Channel involves a package of works that will allow up to 1,650 megalitres a day from Gunbower Creek to Spur Creek.

“The Commonwealth, fortunately, knew what was going on, because they wrote water delivery is limited to the capacity of Gunbower Creek.

“The capacity of Gunbower Creek is 1,650 megalitres a day and the plan was to put 1,650 megalitres out into the forest.

“The most they have ever achieved is 800 megalitres a day, so 800 mean the forest has to water for twice as long as was originally planned.

“The report that was written to address that issue has now disappeared; you simply cannot find it. Some of the locals were asked to be on the committee to address the issue, they all made submissions and nobody has heard anything about it since.”

Geoff also holds concerns that the fishways built are not managed past the opening celebrations. It’s also interesting to note that funds from water trading by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder went to the recently opened Taylors Creek Fishway.

“Since 2015, fishway ecologists have been requesting that performance operation and maintenance guidelines for fishways are prepared, and there are no such documents.

“Here at Hipwell regulator, we had black water pouring out of the forest in the creek last December.

“The water in the creek became so black, Cohuna had their water supply cancelled. I live out on the island. We got an email, a text and a visit from Coliban Water saying sorry, you’re not getting any more freshwater.

“The farms also got told that. How do you milk cows without any freshwater?

“So, they started transporting freshwater from Echuca by the tanker load for several weeks.

“The fishway has slots to install floodgates, they are there to prevent floodwaters from the forest entering the creek.

“One of our members contacted Catchment Management to put floodgates in and was told sorry, everyone is on holidays.

“At the same time, thousands and thousands of carp would come through the fish lock as the gates would open automatically between 7am and 7pm.”

Geoff also questioned how many native fish are drained through the Hipwell regulator into the forest only to be stranded with the return regulators to the Murray remaining closed. The fall from Hipwell regulator to the forest floor means connectivity is quickly cut as flows diminish, leaving the fish trapped in a drying, blackwater puddle.

The tour also visited the Koondrook fishway that connects the Gunbower Creek to the Murray River.

“We had a meeting with catchment management at one stage and asked them what percentage of time is the Gunbower Creek going to be so low that connectivity would not be possible. All we got was blank looks,” said Geoff.

“We’ve done the exercise and 39 per cent of the time, the fish will be unable to swim there, because as the Murray drops, the Gunbower Creek dries out at that point.”

Before Dr Banks had to depart the tour, Paul Madden from Arbuthnot Sawmills spoke of the lived experience locals have with the forest and company, having operated on the same site since 1889.

“I think the way everything is being managed at the moment, there is no commonsense involved and the community opinions around the forest are not being taken into account.

“It’s the community who know about these forests, not people sitting at a desk in Melbourne or Sydney.

“I was out on the island (Gunbower Island) on Sunday, we were trying to look at an area we had harvested earlier this year and we noticed the trees are starting to die because they have sat in water too long.

“We tried to get to that particular block, but there is still too much floodwater in the bush.

“For some reason, they’re holding it in, God knows why, because they’re going to kill more trees.

“Definitely large healthy trees are dying because they’ve been sitting in water far too long.

“We’ve been telling NCCMA this for ages, and it just seems to go straight over.

“I’ve shown the photos of what happens when trees sit in water too long. Basically, when we’ve harvested them, you can see from the butts that they’ve got a blue stain, and we’ve had further experience in the Barmah Forest some years back, that blue stain will become a black rot and the tree will die.

“Basically, we’re seeing the same thing happen here on the island.

“They can handle six months, but not the three floods and all the environmental water they’ve put in there.

“Why they would be environmental watering on top of all the floods we’ve had in there is beyond reckoning.

“We’ve had situations in the forest where we’ve been following the flood water back to get our logs out and they’ve put another environmental flow in and put our machinery and everything underwater.

“The community thinks very highly of this forest, as you have seen at this meeting today, and we hate to see any damage done to the forest.”

Dr Banks had to depart the tour. The bus continued over the river to see a different approach to environmental outcomes, one led not from an urban centre but by community and traditional owners who love and care for the Koondrook Perricoota Forest and the Pollack Swamp. 

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 21 December 2023.