Rising Murray ensures full supply for irrigators

Updated March 28, 2012 09:11:30

Photo: Work delayed on regulator for the Chowilla floodplain (User submitted: Keith Beames)

Irrigators along the Murray in South Australia will get their full water entitlements for the second year in a row.

The SA Government said the 100 per cent opening allocation was possible due to high water volumes in upstream storages.

It follows a confirmation by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority that SA will receive its full 1,850-gigalitre entitlement during the next financial year.

SA Water Minister Paul Caica said the early announcement on allocations will give certainty to water users.

“Given the current conditions, SA is prevented from deferring and storing entitlement flow for carryover under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, therefore there will be no ability to carryover water into the 2012-13 water year,” he said.

“However given irrigators will have a 100 per cent of their allocation, they should have enough water to meet their normal production without the need to use carryover.”

Regulator delay

A $40 million environmental construction project in the Riverland is facing more delays because of the rising River Murray.

A regulator of 12 concrete piers has been under construction for more than two years at the internationally-recognised Chowilla floodplain, north of Renmark.

The regulator will give authorities the ability to secure the site’s future health by preventing water from flowing back into the Murray.

That will ensure it builds up and spreads across a wider area of the floodplain.

Higher Murray flows inundated the area in September 2010 and stopped construction for about 16 months.

The work resumed in January, but the rising river level has again put work on hold.

SA Water says construction cannot resume until the flow drops to 45,000 megalitres per day.

Daily flows are currently about 10,000 megalitres above that across the SA border.

Topics:murray-darling-basin, rivers, water-supply, water-management, water, wetlands, environment, irrigation, rural, states-and-territories, government-and-politics, renmark-5341, goolwa-5214, sa

First posted March 28, 2012 08:46:00

27 March, 2012

Materials needed for each US citizen each year

materials needed for each US citizen each year.

Published March 26, 20

Posted in Carbon Dioxide, Consumerism, Financial crisis, Food and Water scarcity

Global ‘water threat’ by 2030 – official report

Published March 25, 2012 | By John James

Nations will cut off rivers to prevent their enemies having access to water downstream, terrorists will blow up dams, and states that cannot provide water for their citizens will collapse. This is the future – as painted by a top US security report.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the organization that oversees US intelligence agencies such as the CIA and FBI, was commissioned by President Barack Obama to examine the impact of water scarcity worldwide on US security.

And while the prospect of “water wars” has been touted for decades, it may start to become reality within a decade. The ODNI predicts that by 2040 water demand will outstrip current supply by 40 per cent.

For full and disturbing report click here.

26 March, 2012

Water wars between countries could be just around the corner, Davey warns

Energy secretary tells conference that growing pressure on water resources could worsen existing war and lead to new ones

Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 March 2012 19.12 GMT
Article history

Water wars : Tribal Water Wars Could Be Looming in Ethiopia's Omo Valley due to water scarity

A member of the Karo tribe by the Omo river in Ethiopia. Three hydropower dams are planned – the resulting scarcity could quickly lead to violent conflict. Photograph: Dean Krakel/Getty Images

Water wars could be a real prospect in coming years as states struggle with the effects of climate change, growing demand for water and declining resources, the secretary of state for energy and climate change warned on Thursday.

Ed Davey told a conference of high-ranking politicians and diplomats from around the world that although water had not been a direct cause of wars in the past, growing pressure on the resource if climate change is allowed to take hold, together with the pressure on food and other resources, could lead to new sources of conflict and the worsening of existing conflicts.

“Countries have not tended to go to war over water, but I have a fear for the world that climate instability drives political instability,” he said. “The pressure of that makes conflict more likely.”

Even a small temperature rise – far less than the 4C that scientists predict will result from a continuation of business as usual – could lead to lower agricultural yields, he warned, at a time when population growth means that demand for food was likely to be up by 70% by 2060. By the same time, he noted, the number of people living in conditions of serious water stress would have reached 1.8 billion, according to estimates.

“Climate change intensifies pressures on states, and between states,” he told the conference, gathered to discuss whether climate change and natural resources should be regarded as a national security issue. “[Its effects] can lead to internal unrest … and exacerbate existing tensions. We have to plan for a world where climate change makes difficult problems even worse.”

But Davey recalled previous global catastrophes that had been averted, including the threat of nuclear armageddon during the cold war, and successes such as the elimination of smallpox. He urged governments to work on adapting to climate change as a matter of urgency, as well as striving for an international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

His call was echoed by Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of the Gabonese Republic. He told the conference that Africa was the most vulnerable part of the world to climate change, but that African people had been responding to a changing climate for thousands of years – his own Bantu people had been forced, centuries ago, to move around Africa as areas dried out and food became scarcer.

Gabon had already started to take action to protect the 88% of its land that is covered by rainforest, and to reduce carbon emissions by its industries, with a view to a “transformation” by 2025.

He warned that seeking to lift people out of poverty could not be achieved at the expense of degrading natural resources. He warned that policies for economic growth across the continent must reflect this immediately: “The impact [of degradation] cannot be reversed by policies conceived too late.”

25 March, 2012

Rivers flush to restore’natural’ flows

Rivers flush to restore ‘natural’ flows

Updated March 22, 2012 14:14:29

Photo: Trial will boost flows of the Torrens, South Para and Onkaparinga Rivers (Gil Ambler: user submitted)

Map: SA

Natural water flows will be restored in a trial in the Torrens, South Para and Onkaparinga Rivers.

From next month, they will be flushed with several hundred megalitres of water to try to match pre-settlement flows.

Experts say the extra water will help to deepen pools native fish depend on for survival during the drier months in Adelaide.

Professor Chris Daniels, from the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges Natural Resources Management Board, says the aim is to find a balance between too much and too little water.

“We don’t want the rivers to flow all year round as if they were a European river because that would be really good for carp and probably be quite destructive for our native fish,” he explained.

“They actually need the drying periods as well, sort of protects them from being attacked from these very large introduced fish.”

He says if the trial is successful other rivers could be included.

“We’ve got plenty of rivers just in the Mount Loftys themselves that have suffered very severely-reduced flows as a result of damming and there’s no reason at all why the results from this trial couldn’t be extended to the Finniss or any of the other rivers that also suffer along these lines,” he said.

Topics:rivers, environment, water-management, environmental-management, environmental-impact, sa, adelaide-5000, gawler-5118, port-noarlunga-5167

First posted March 22, 2012 08:42:13

22 March, 2012

Murray concerns expressed in Canberra

Updated: 14:15, Wednesday March 21, 2012

A fisherman and a pistachio grower from South Australia have come to Canberra to tell the prime minister of their concerns for the future of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Fourth-generation fisherman Henry Jones barbecued mulloway, caught from the Murray River mouth, on the front lawns of Parliament House on Wednesday.

Later he listed several varieties of fish that were now extinct because of the river’s poor health.

Behind him stood several politicians, including Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, independent senator Nick Xenophon and Water Minister Tony Burke.

Mr Jones disputed the usefulness of a draft plan for the basin.

He said the measures in the plan would not be enough to flush out the two million tonnes of salt that flowed down the basin each year, 70 per cent of which was from interstate.

‘It’s Australia’s responsibility to get rid of that and put it out the mouth,’ he told reporters.

Pistachio grower David Peake, from Swan Reach, said he had not harvested a single pistachio nut during four years of drought, but had just had a record crop.

He was worried about the next drought.

After declaring the Murray Darling Basin Authority wasn’t listening to the concerns of South Australians, he turned to Ms Gillard and said: ‘Prime minister, I’m sure that some of your government departments aren’t listening either.’

Ms Gillard said the government was determined to work with South Australians to ensure the good health of the river.

‘I know what it is like to live in Adelaide during days of dreadful drought,’ she said.

‘I know what it is like to worry about the health of the river Murray, to worry about its mouth being closed, to worry about salinity.’

Australian Greens leader Bob Brown repeated his party’s line that a minimum 4000 gigalitres of water was needed to restore the basin to good health.

A 20-week consultation process on the authority’s draft plan for management of the basin ends in mid-April.

Mr Burke will then take a final draft plan to federal parliament.

‘This is an important input into that,’ he said of views put forward by Mr Jones, Mr Peake and Australian Conservation Foundation CEO Don Henry on Wednesday.

22 March, 2012

Water users vent their concerns in Forbes

It must be recognised that future droughts will occur. We must not be lulled into a false sense of security.

Water users vent their concerns in Forbes

Posted March 20, 2012 08:02:07

Map Data – Terms of Use

Map

Map: Forbes 2871

The Murray Darling Basin Authority is being urged to use the recent flooding to reassess decisions made during the drought.

About 20 people attended a community meeting in Forbes yesterday to discuss the impact of the draft plan on the Lachlan Valley.

No further buybacks are planned for the river, but some irrigators are still concerned about the social and economic impacts.

Local farmer Rawson Leach says now the river and storages are full, it is a perfect time to rethink decisions made when the situation was more desperate.

“Nature has given us a great gift in that it’s provided ample water over the last two years to just take a deep breath and readjust their time frames so that some of the rushed decisions that have been thrown up at us two years ago can have plenty of time to work,” he said.

“Once some of these business and some of the decisions are made, there will be no going back.”

The chief executive of the MDBA, Rhondda Dickson, says the recent flooding will help make the transition to the proposed new system easier.

She says it is important to remember the plan will be in place long after the waters have receded.

“The sort of changes we’re proposing aren’t just for the next two years or the next period of time or even five to ten years,” she said.

“What we’re looking at is really quite a significant rebalancing of the systems so in the estimates we’ve identified of how much water needs to be recovered for the environment, we’ve looked at the last droughts and floods of the last 114 years.”

The MDBA has also been told the Lachlan Valley is suffering while the draft plan is developed.

Mr Leach says the uncertainty around the plan has made some landholders nervous about spending money on their properties.

“People extrapolate out consequences that may not occur, but where there’s uncertainty there’s always going to be a reluctance to invest or to continue maintenance all those sort of things.

“You know, it’s once there’s doubt, it’s like the share market.

“Once there’s doubt there’s always that unknown factor.”

Ms Dickson says it is important the issues around the plan are dealt with quickly.

She says there are a range of ways to provide certainty.

“One is to finalise and settle on a plan that is reasonably well accepted.

“We know we’re never going to have a plan that everyone’s going to want to have because everyone’s views are so different, but one that is reasonably accepted by all governments and that they can focus on, the implementation, and that the implementation will include them.”

Topics:environment, rivers, murray-darling-basin, water, water-management, water-supply, irrigation, forbes-2871

More stories from New South Wales

19 March, 2012

Category: Water

Rising Murray ensures full supply for irrigators

Regulator delay

Water wars between countries could be just around the corner, Davey warns

Rivers flush to restore ‘natural’ flows

Murray concerns expressed in Canberra

Updated: 14:15, Wednesday March 21, 2012

It must be recognised that future droughts will occur. We must not be lulled into a false sense of security.

Water users vent their concerns in Forbes