EcoRadio

Category: Water

The world’s fresh water supplies are almost fully exploited.Almost al, 97 per cent, of the world’s water is salt. Of the fresh water in the world, two thirds is locked up as ice and snow (the cryosphere – to you and me, kid!). Globally, three quarters of the water that is used is used by agriculture. India, China and the United States, use more fresh water than is available. The water level in those nation’s aquifers is falling as a result.The current food crisis has come about largely as a result as the shortfall in available water begins to impact on the cost of irrigation. 

  • New look Senate makes water its top priority

    LUCY SKUTHORP in The Land

    A new-look Senate is cutting its teeth debating plans to fix the Lower Lakes in South Australia, with those holding the balance of power pushing for an emergency inquiry in a bid to transfer significant volumes of water from storages in the northern Murray Darling Basin.

    Wasting no time to use their positions of power in the new Senate after being sworn in yesterday, a bolstered number of Greens, with the support of South Australian Independent Nick Xenophon, instigated the inquiry.

    They want to determine how much water is currently in water storages in the Murray Darling Basin and how that water can be moved to the drying Lower Lakes and Coorong, at the very bottom of the Murray Darling system.

    But the push for water to be taken from higher up the system will require tens of thousands of additional megalitres to cover the huge losses in transferring that water out of storages and through the system, with evidence suggesting the amount of water actually required is simply not available.

    Senator Xenophon and the Greens are on record in recent weeks calling for compulsory acquisitions to buy whatever storage water is available to send to the lakes, taking aim at northern basin irrigators, and cotton farmers in particular.

    They have supported Australian Conservation Foundation calls for the purchase of several high-profile irrigation properties on the market in south west Queensland and north west NSW.

    Newly appointed Greens Senator for South Australia, Sarah Hanson-Young said the aim of the inquiry was to get enough water down the Murray to save the Lakes before Christmas.

    “Australians want to see a unified national effort to save the Coorong wetlands and the Murray River’s lower lakes,” Senator Hanson-Young said.

    “The water is there, all that’s missing is the political will.”

    Senator Hanson-Young said the Senate inquiry would report by September 30, and would identify how much water was available in the system, how the Federal Government could obtain it, how it could be transported down the river, and any barriers to making it happen.

    The Opposition is supportive of the move for an inquiry, but negotiated with the Greens to have compulsory acquisition taken out of the terms of reference.

  • Irrigation statistics challenge cliches

    The ABS says the largest decline in irrigation water use was for rice, with volumes down more than 81pc, followed by cotton (down by 50pc) and pasture for grazing (down by 30pc) – the three industries most often blamed for the Murray Darling water shortage.

    However, the major use of irrigation water in 2006-07 was for pasture for dairy cattle, which accounted for 15pc or 1163GL of all irrigation water use.

    With a decline of more than 42pc since 2005/06, New South Wales reported the largest decrease in water for irrigation.

    In contrast water use for irrigation in Tasmania increased by 29pc, and by 8pc in South Australia, most of this increase being for pasture for grazing.

    Other findings from the ABS report include:

    * approximately 40pc of farms and 41pc of irrigating farms in Australia were located in the Murray-Darling Basin;

    * irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin accounted for 58pc of water used for irrigation nationally;

    * irrigation water used in the Murray-Darling Basin decreased by 40pc from 7370GL in 2005-06 to 4458GL gigalitres in 2006-07;

    * the major use of this water was for irrigation of pastures for grazing (1093GL) and irrigation of cotton (819GL);

    * government or private irrigation schemes supplied over 38pc of all water used on farms, followed by groundwater and other surface water.

    * the volume of groundwater used by farms increased by nearly 15pc, while volumes from all other sources decreased;

    * farmers purchased 655GL of extra water on a temporary basis at a cost of $122 million, and 74GL on a permanent basis at a cost of $93m; and

    * the value of irrigation equipment and infrastructure on farms at 30 June 2007 was $9.3 billion.

  • Country towns fear water buy backs

    “You might be able to compensate the people who sell their licence, but how do you compensate the people who live in the town that depends on that licence?”

    Balonne Shire mayor, Donna Stewart, said the buyback was potentially “catastrophic” for her shire, which had lost 600 people in the last census and may have lost another 200 since August 2007.

    “We won’t be taking it lying down,” Ms Stewart said.

    “We’ll be knocking on the door, asking for compensation.”

    Green groups have suggested the Government use its buyback funds to purchase six key irrigation properties currently on the market or seeking finance, with the aim of putting 300 gigalitres back into the system in the short-term, and recovering 400GL a year in the long term.

    The list includes the 80,000-hectare Cubbie Station, the Balonne’s and Australia’s largest single irrigation enterprise, which has the capacity to hold 462,000 megalitres in its capacious storages.

    “I couldn’t put a dollar value on Cubbie,” Ms Stewart said. “Every-thing that we go to in this shire is supported by Cubbie.”

    Even if Condamine-Balonne irrigators stampede to sell licences when the buyback program opens in Queensland in September – an unlikely scenario, according to Ms Stewart – the water will do little to help the stricken lower Murray.

    The Murray-Darling Basin Commission estimates only 20 per cent of the water that crosses the border makes it to the lower Murray.

    Lower Murray Irrigation Associa-tion chairman, Richard Reedy, said the Queensland buyback might help in the long run. “But to be of any use right now, you would have to bring it all here in plastic bottles.”

  • Drought limits impact of water buyback

    And today there are newspaper reports that in this year, when most water entitlements have been severely cut due to the drought, just 10ML of actual water will be returned to the environment.

    “All the $50 million has bought is a promise in the future of water, it has bought air space, it will not put any water in the Murray River at this time,” Opposition water spokesman John Cobb said on radio this morning.

    “When you speak to those who have been charged with buying the water they concede there was no plan, they just bought the cheapest water they could, which was buying air space in dams, it did not actually buy water at this time.”

    The Department of Water’s report into the water buyback shows that the Government bought only the cheapest licences on offer (see graph).

    However, it also shows that about 25pc of the licences purchased by the Government were high-security licences.

    The departmental report shows the Government paid an average of $2124/ML for high security water and $1131/ML for NSW general security and Victorian low reliability licences.

  • Government buys cotton farm to save marshes

    In a very rare event for the marshes, it was welcomed by all sides of the ferocious water debate that has raged there for decades.

    The federal Water Minister, Penny Wong, said the marshes were in poor shape due to a lack of flood water and she was determined to help rescue them “after 12 years of inaction under the previous government”.

    The NSW Environment Minister, Verity Firth, said, “The Iemma Government has already purchased 15,000 megalitres of general security water entitlement for the Macquarie Marshes and expects to hold at least 30,000 megalitres by the end of this year.

    “These entitlements allow us to orchestrate flood events in the marshes that provide a lifeline to the wetland ecosystem.”

    Richard Kingsford, a wetlands expert with the University of NSW, said the buy was “fantastic”, helping bridge a gap between the north and south marsh nature reserves, established in 1900.

    “It was always a worry that there was a major irrigation area in the middle of the marshes,” he said.

    However, restoring the land to its natural state would be a “major challenge”.

    In the Macquarie, 24pc of surface water has been diverted and the CSIRO has found the average period between important inundation events for the marshes has more than doubled since the construction of Burrendong Dam in the 1960s allowed irrigation to flourish along the river.

    Buying Pillicawarrina will not instantly return water to the marshes as its entitlement is mostly general security, and there is a zero allocation of general security water because Burrendong is only 18pc full.

  • Rainfall patterns on knife’s edge

    In terms of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) index, conditions have remained close to neutral throughout July.

    Modelling shows neutral conditions are likely to continue in 2008, with most models showing some warming in the coming season, but none suggesting a redevelopment of a La Niña and only a minority predicting a return to El Niño.

    And since winter is a period of relatively high predictability, the neutral forecast can be viewed with some confidence.

    The Indian Ocean is currently in a positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) (which increases the chance of low winter-spring falls in south east Australia), but the index used to measure the IOD, has weakened considerably since its peak in early June, boosting growers’ hopes for reasonable spring rain.

    The IOD is forecast to persist but moderate further throughout the rest of the year.

    In far western NSW there was a moderate swing towards the chance of below average rain in the coming three months.