When politicians have to wear the consequences of their decisions; those decisions are likely to be very different? It's so easy to pontificate from the wilds of Noosa?
The MD basin is the most engineered system; just about anywhere; and, is just not possible to un-engineer it?
Instead we need to revisit some of the engineering; to get it right! There are a number of places where the river needs to be deepened to reduce evaporation. Annual evaporation numbers top 40%?
When the system is reduced to a series of stagnant algae laden cesspools; it is of no benefit to either the environment; or those who depend on it for their very survival.
We need to manage it from the mountains down to the sea; and try to replicate, what was there before the white man; namely, a very slow release of the water from the uplands, which should be slowly releasing water; stored in the landscape, during the drier times. This way there will still be some water and environmental flows; during our often extended droughts, which arguably can only ever get worse with climate change and must be adjusted for?
Leaving it to nature as the normal parameters fly out the window is a recipe for disaster; and, almost the most fatuous suggestion made? Consult the original custodians, and perhaps native common sense; and pragmatic survival instincts; might surprise quite a few?

The river is the locality of journeying because it determines the "over there" and the "there" at which our becoming homely arrives, yet from which, as a coming to be at home, it takes its departure. The river does not merely grant the locale, in the sense of the mere place, that is occupied by humans in their dwelling. The locale is intrinsic to the river itself. The river dwells. (Martin Heidegger, Hoderlin's Hymn "The Ister," 1996 [1942])

As someone who grew up on the Murray in Mildura I could hardly believe my eyes when I first saw the rivers of Europe, so full, so fast. The Murray is those things sometimes, but without the same feeling of insistence. A different story altogether. Unlike Europe, few of our communities have had time to yet be able to dwell with the river's own dwelling.

It wasn’t the Olive Grove, Di, it was Patrice’s next book, the River, published by Penguin in 2003. It talks about Patrice and her partner, Phillip Adams, and their biodynamic farm, Elmswood, on the Pages River. Water entitlements and mining. The beginning of national water reform by COAG and the adoption of a framework in 1994. Market based reforms and the true cost of water in the Pages and the Hunter rivers The association of water rights and properties, and then owners rights to trade them on the open market. You will see some fundamental insights into where the value of water is today. An interesting read with correlation to the MDB system.

Rhrosty, it's irrelevant where I presently live. I lived by the Murray during the 1950s. Returning many times in the 1970s and 1980s, and later visiting Mildura in the 2000s, I found a river that had been seriously degraded by mismanagement, with exotic species, especially carp, adding to the damage. As I flew into Mildura, the Murray looked from the air like a river of radiator fluid. In earlier years I had seen around Kerang fields devastated by salination. This is not an issue only for people living in the MDB: it is an issue for the whole nation. And, the MDB Authority does not impress as a body capable of addressing the challenges for the future of the Murray-Darling and the whole of its resources. Instead, the MDBA seeks to invent politically driven compromises that appear only partially to address the immense environmental, social, agricultural and economic problems arising from our mistreatment of our largest river system. As my comment pointed out, this is consistent with Government failure in addressing the potential devastation of large scale coalmining and short-term coal seam gas extraction. Some of that also occurs in the MDB.

Fabulous article Diane. Wonderful to link the narrative with the beauty and scientific significance of this amazing and important river. We need to think carefully and deeply about the future of the MDB and it is clearly imperative that Craig gives the MDB due credence and study the science rather than respond to the politics! Keep up your excellent work.

Fantastic work Diane and really enjoyable article to read - your interweaving of the history, narrative and science is compelling. Let's hope the Feds get it right. Important to study the science and think more of the future of the MDB than the future of any political party.