murray river life

Golf clubs voluntarily ripping up their fairways, new housing developments without gardens, and water police patrolling the streets.

This is Las Vegas 2008 - see Matthew Price’s BBC drought diary here and read more about what other countries are doing to conserve water.

Meanwhile a South Australian Government official says the government has no plans to harvest stormwater. That revelation came on Wednesday afternoon - shortly afterwards a media report stated that the CSIRO’s chief water scientist, Dr Bill Young, had said there was enough water in New South Wales Menindee Lakes to release some to environmental flows. According to Dr Young this would have a “definately postive” impact on the dying lower lakes.

However, premier Mike Rann has stated he would be one day dubbed the most negligent premier in the state if he released storagres from Menindee Lakes for the environment. The water is needed for “critical human needs”.

I continue to wonder, during all these discussions, debates and pleas, if the mouth is left to die won’t the problems slowly travel up the river? A new pipeline has been recently approved to pump water from the River at Tailem Bend to Lower Lakes irrigators - will this pipeline have to continue to be moved up the river?

I have been designing the JMS website on and off over the past few days - it’s not completed yet but I would love to hear any comments.

Find it here.

Just before going to sleep last night I was ranting to my husband about over allocation of rivers worldwide (I’m sure he brought it up). He quickly broke through my rant with the following exchange:

Me: ….and it’s only because the states aren’t using their full allocations that it’s not an environmental disaster……do you know what an acre-foot is?

Him: “Yeah, it’s when you drop a heavy brick on your foot and you say “ahhh my aching foot”.

Me: Dissolves into laughter

Him: “I thought you needed a gigglelitre”

PS. For those who care - one million acre-feet of water is equivilant to 1233.5 gigalitres

The BBC’s Matthew Price is currently travelling along the Colorado River and reporting on its health and the views of the people who live near it. The first two diary entries can be found here.

The river has been in drought for eight years and, as mentioned in the report I posted yesterday, is hopelessly overallocated. It is only because the states are not using their full allocations that the river is still running to Mexico, just.

Nevada’s attempts to save water are admirable - the Southern Nevada Water Authority seems to realise that people living in a desert just cannot enjoy a lush green lawn etc. They even pass on the message with a bit of humour. It begs the question - why hasn’t the South Australian Government imposed stricter domestic watering restrictions?

The Nile, the Colorado River, the Ganges and the Yellow River – some of the largest rivers in the world are also the most susceptible to mismanagement and over allocation.

Irrigation is a historical practice - the Chinese have been irrigating since the third century BC and ancient Roman aqueducts that dot the European landscape are still used today.

However, rapid population growth and the need for greater food stocks at a global level has seen some of the world’s largest and most important river systems depleted to shadows of their former selves.

The Murray Darling Basin Commission announced yesterday that the drought is getting worse. MDBC chief executive Wendy Craik said the news was “disappointing” and that the likelihood of upper Murray inflow being above average for the remainder of winter and spring is very low.

Dr Craik said the water level in the lower lakes has been temporarily stablised but highlighted that low inflows over the next 12 months would be devastating for the area.

Have been spending a lot of time discovering my inner website designer recently - editing and designing sites for a top local builder - Bennett Builders - and a local native fish rehabilitation project called Katfish Reach (site not quite ready for public viewing yet).

Lower Lakes - A snapshot

The above PDF was compiled by JMS for South Australian Murray Irrigators in February/March and distributed, via email, around the country.

It tells the story of those irrigators around the lower lakes that are struggling every day to keep their farms, and their hopes, alive.

A SAMI media release….

June 26, 2008

Producers urged to make informed decisions early

South Australian river communities are being left to fend for themselves and should make plans that do not rely on government intervention.

That is the message from the leader of the State’s peak irrigation body, the South Australian Murray Irrigators.

SAMI chairman Tim Whetstone delivered the message today as his members are about to enter the new irrigation season on Sunday with a two percent allocation.

“Are we any better off than those tribes that were found deep in the Amazonian jungle the other day. We’ve become the forgotten people of this State.

“We have devoted countless hours to meetings, workshops, seminars and travelling across the nation to talk to State and Federal politicians and it is our belief that Govenments are not going to be our saviour.

“Business people in our river communities need to acknowledge that and collect as much meaningful data as possible and act on it.

“Producers need to make plans early and save what water they can.”

Mr Whetstone said irrigators needed access to regular and independent information on the projections of water available within the Murray Darling Basin to make such decisions.

He hopes the State Government to honour a recent undertaking to establish a new website that will give irrigators direct access to consistently updated water projections for SA.

“This type of information is already provided to NSW irrigators, so we expect the same service,” he said.

“We don’t want a repeat of last year where we are hanging on Ministerial announcements about allocations. They almost always sparked a dramatic increase in water prices.”

Mr Whetstone said a lot irrigators had been forced to buy water last December when prices jumped to well over $1000 megalitre after the Government announced that irrigation allocations would not go above 16%. A few weeks later allocations had increased to 32% and water prices dropped.

Mr Whetstone said SAMI will continue to represent the communities it ultimately represents and provide innovative solutions to Government Ministers. Mr Whetstone will introduce guest speaker Wentworth Group member and Adelaide University water economist Professor Mike Young at the Riverland Rural Expo at the Renmark Hotel tomorrow.

Below are some links to handful of blogs on this topic, which has been around since Adam was a boy, but seems to be gaining momentum as newspaper companies around the world fight against decreasing readership.

Newspaper killer confesses

The future of newspapers - the editors’ perspective

What comes next?

And a story from the Economist about The New York Times

Later

Some info on internet marketing and internet useage.