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The Forum > Article Comments > We can keep farmers afloat and the Murray-Darling flowing > Comments

We can keep farmers afloat and the Murray-Darling flowing : Comments

By David Leyonhjelm, published 31/3/2016

Another recommendation is for a study into whether the Ramsar listing of South Australia’s Lower Lakes should be estuarine rather than freshwater.

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I think it was Tim Flannery who said the Lower Lakes evaporate 190 GL a year. Two centuries ago Capt. Charles Sturt said the lakes were salty. Now Greens are showing their true conservatism by wanting to keep the manmade barrages which prevent sea water inundation. If sea level rise is as dire as some predict they will be overwhelmed anyway.

For modest cost a salt barrier weir could be constructed at Pomanda Point near Wellington and the barrages opened. Buy out aggrieved 'lifestyle' residents like those on Hindmarsh Island near Goolwa. Dairy farmers already have a water pipe from an upstream intake. Then give Adelaide some of the water savings so it can go ahead with its plans for 2m people and save on expensive seawater desalination.
Posted by Taswegian, Thursday, 31 March 2016 8:43:31 AM
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I'm sorry David but see no merit and nothing but environmental harm in your simplistic solution. Other solutions bekon, such as reusing Melbourne's and Adelaide's millions of annual tons of wasted waste water!

Underground applications make this routinely wasted water, loaded with agriculture friendly nutrients, eminantly suitable for any irrigation that excludes all root crops.

Moreover exclusive underground applications literally halves the demand for water all while literally doubling production outcomes. And given intensive production, plastic laid on the ground, warms it, controls weeds and channels any and all rainwater directly to the roots systems of planted crops, and allows planting schedules a month earlier in some cases

Thinking outside the square allows some to envisage very broad scale oil rich algae production; first and foremost, because it only requires 1-2% of the water needed for other cash crops!

No other crop can match the production of farmed algae, which given optimised conditions, literally doubles its harvestable mass every 24 hours!

And extracting the oil product, sometimes as high as 60%, is child's play! Sun dry then crush some of the harvested filtrate.

Two types bekon, and produce naturally occurring diesel and jet fuel. And the extracted oil (superior diesel, jet fuel) needs just a little filtering and maybe the addition of 4.7% methanol to make it ready for use.

Factors which if intelligently applied by a facilitating government, ought to do several things, make the Murray/Darling one of the richest most productive areas in Oz, and massively restore the flow to the murray.

How? Algae just borrow water rather than convert it to plant moisture, and given closed cycle systems (optimised production) eliminate evaporation as a factor.

And given covered storage eliminates the usual evaporation that halves available stored water. Ditto replacing all open canals with pipes.

Something that ought to be applied to all on farm usage or storage! And doable via tax rebates, averaged incomes, development grants and what have you? Make yourself actually useful and lend you mind, efforts and position to some or all the above!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 31 March 2016 12:29:14 PM
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Well thank goodness the Libs and the Greens team up to push through the Senate voting changes. Please bring on the double dissolution election.

Happy for David to list the South Australian labor Senators who think this committees report is a good one.

Why would anybody be surprised to find these Senator's from NSW and Vic find their states disadvantage by the current but happy to see SA part of the river killed off.

Taswegian you should stick to the problems your own state is facing.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 31 March 2016 2:43:10 PM
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SA and Tas have the same problem, namely lack of rainfall in hill country. FWIW I've canoed and sailed all over the SA lower lakes.
Posted by Taswegian, Thursday, 31 March 2016 4:17:45 PM
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It seems extraordinary that The Greens and the Australian Conservation Foundation could argue against the restoration of the Murray River's estuary! But they do.

In fact, Green’s Senator Robert Simms issued a dissenting report arguing against the removal or modification of the barrages to allow seawater into Lake Alexandrina, and also against any re-assessment of the freshwater Ramsar-listing of the Coorong. Simms suggests rather than doing what is obviously right – restoring the life giving tides of the Southern Ocean to the Lower Murray – we should instead defer to the advice of “expert.”

As regards evaporation from the Lower Lakes, its in the order of 1,000 GL per year. Methodology is here: http://www.mythandthemurray.org/calculating-evaporation-from-the-lower-lakes/

If you care about the environment of the Murray Darling vote for Senators David Leyonhjelm (NSW), Bob Day (SA) and John Madigan (Victoria) at the Federal Election.
Posted by Jennifer, Thursday, 31 March 2016 9:40:00 PM
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The Coorong should be estuarine.
There is clear evidence marine animals are starving.
Fish are not immune to starvation.

The once estimated population of Short-tailed Shearwater mutton birds is now down to an estimated 17 million and those birds have been dying in mass starvation along Australian coastline from Mackay Queensland to South Australia past the Coorong, and around Tasmania.

The Coorong is supposed to be a salt water seagrass nursery producing small fish to feed birds, tuna and whales.
Yet small fish are even being imported for feedmeal and to feed aquaculture.

This is not idle or uninformed jibber.
I have over 50 years underwater experience and since 1982 have been independently involved in full time research into protein deficiency malnutrition and associated disease among seafood dependent Pacific Islands friends.

The state of the marine environment is not being officially assessed and reported.
Consequently solutions are not being officially put forward.
Yet there are challenging solutions, including to get more water to farmers and Broken Hill and the Coorong.

I have background as a jackaroo, overseer and manager on Paroo River (NSW) and Calvert River (NT) stations.
I have lived on the Great Dividing Range and understand terrain and valleys.
Presently I am based in Solomon Islands, Moreton Bay Qld and Pittwater NSW.

I made a submission to the Australian government Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper, Supporting Information, Index F, Fairfax John C.
That submission suggests harvesting excess water high in the northern Queensland Gregory Range with aqueduct downhill southward to the Murray Darling catchment beginning central Queensland.
This is about harvesting water off the top of the wet season catchment to overcome waste into the Gulf of Carpentaria, in order to better manage the whole of the water ecosystem including the Coorong and ocean.
http://agwhitepaper.agriculture.gov.au/supporting-information/published-submissions-green-paper

Was any submission considered by the Senate Select Committee referred to in this thread article, to bring northern Qld wet season water to Broken Hill and the Coorong, and if not why not?
Can anyone establish such harvesting and movement of water southward is impossible, and why?

Or is Australia asleep at the wheel?
Posted by JF Aus, Saturday, 2 April 2016 2:39:37 PM
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