Chameleon,
Nothing could be further from the truth!
I have sought support from all political parties, support for Lock Zero as I believe the sensible solution is to totally upgrade the Barrages and construct Lock Zero.
Upgraded Barrages would allow for proper management of flows out of the Murray River’s mouth as SA are not
‘victims’ of upstream but ‘victims’ of bad management decisions.
As explained by Lance Boyle the tides are not able to keep the mouth open so other methods must be investigated and yes mistakes have been made and are continuing to be made but in regard to studies one must be done into the feasibility of Lock Zero as I believe then we can move on as Lock Zero is the only method to protect SA’s potable water supply.

56flood,
I thought my geography was fairly good on the area. Refer back to page 3 isn't that the section you are referring to.

Flood 56 or Peter (?)
Which part is not the truth?
a) That the continual political cry from SA is that it has been denied fresh water from upstream (and hence a victim)?
b) That the LRM and the LL and the Coorong are affected by their proximity to the coast and therefore can't be the same as the remainder of the MDB?
c) That some serious mistakes have been made in SA by SA and they need to be fixed?
d) You're enjoying the fact that Lance and Jennifer do not agree on the actual amount of sea water that most definitely did naturally enter the system? (neither of them deny that those Lakes did in fact have sea water incursions) or
e) That almost everyone here agrees that a better solution must be found?
Trying to maintain the status quo down there has proven to be unsustainable Peter.
It would be far better to just move on and accept that your part of the system can use it's proximity to the ocean as an advantage rather than treat it as a way to cry 'victim'.
Work with your natural environment, not against it.
Restore what you can and make sure you protect the potable supply for established communities.
It seems there are people like spud42 who know how to do that.
That is what other coastal communities do.
SA needs to do the same.
Most people who live near the ocean actually like it. Why don't you?

chameleon,
a) My political position is, as I said, I seek support from all political affiliations for a study into Lock Zero!
b) The tides near the Coorong/Murray mouth: -
Please believe me the Southern Ocean tides don’t work in the River Mouth’s future.
I will post that information in my next post.
c) Serious mistakes were made by not only SA and if you are talking about the Barrages at first there were 26 Locks proposed for the River Murray but this plan was altered in favour of instead of the farthest downstream Lock being at Wellington to construct the Barrages which were partly as a trade-off for Lake Mulwala.
d) Regarding Jennifer and Lance, sorry but Ms. Marohasy is incorrect and Lance is correct!
e) A solution MUST be arrived at but it must be in the BASIN’s best interests!
Re, “Trying to maintain the status quo down there” look seriously at the Barrage total upgrade and Lock Zero or any other feasible solution of which removing the Barrages is NOT on the Table.
I regret we CAN NO LONGER work with the natural environment because we have irreversibly altered alter the River Murray.
I love the ocean especially the fishing.

chameleon
b) The tides near the Coorong/Murray mouth: -
From Ian Mott,
I think the impact of tidal intrusion has been overstated because the local tidal regime makes serious intrusions the exception rather than the rule. Given that half of each monthly lunar cycle involves very minimal tidal variation, and 16 hours of each remaining daily cycle also involves either minimal variation or outflow, then high tides can only occur for 1/6th of the year (ie 1/3rd of 50%).
The historical references to continuous fresh water then become a function of pure probability. The lake, due to its shallow nature, was no place for small boats during storm events as the chop would be very dangerous. And when these events coincided with high tides they were also effectively “off the radar”. And that means that any local anecdotal observations of the composition of lake water took place during the more than 5/6th (84%) of the time when no tidal intrusion was present. If peak tidal flows were also likely to produce dangerous flow rates near the populated centres then the interval in which saline intrusions would not be detected would increase to well over 90% of the time.
The strongest conclusion is that historical references to fresh water conditions in the lake are likely to be roughly representative of actual conditions but the sequence of anecdotal observations was unlikely to have picked up the character and scale of anomalous conditions. These anomalous sea water intrusions were unlikely to have lasted longer than 8 hours at a time. And given the distances involved in each transit, could not have extended far enough, under all but 9th decile circumstances (drought and storm surges), to impact on northern lakeshore ecosystems or agriculture.
And that means that the fears of total barrage removal are overstated but the impacts on river mouth closure of a larger tidal prism are such that the barrages need to remain in place until a better solution is shown to be working

Chameleon,
Lake Alexandrina

Using the monitoring station about 1.5km upstream of the Ewe Island barrage as it seems that Boundary, Ewe and Tauwitcherie have a more direct influence on the lower part of Lake Alex. The last 12 month data show:
-starting from a baseline of about 500EC,
-salinities greater than 2000EC occurred on 125 days with the longest continuous period being 47 days during May to July,
-salinities greater than 6500EC occurred on 63 days with the longest period being 25 days in May to June.
-peak salinities of 26,000EC were reached or exceeded about 9 separate times.

Since June the barrage has been operated to reduce the incidence of intrusion so the data is conservative but it does give an idea of the percentage of time that seawater intrusions could have effected the Lakes in the past even in moderately high flow periods