I'm not surprised by this article. As one would suspect, farmers are the best environmentalists in the country and should be left alone to continue with their work.

In recent times Labor State governments have established numerous state parks supposedly to protect the environment. Farmers would have done the job far better.

I think the government authority should build higher banks that will overide the sneaky ones and divert the water to where they want it rather than onto pastures. Anyone who attempts to build even higher banks or breaches the new banks should forfeit allocation for the season or face some penalty.

In terms of the costs of diverting water from Queensland irrigation to feed those NSW wetlands, the Queensland Government at one time proposed to take all of the water from Cubby Station. That is, to effectively close the largest, most efficient, most profitable and highest-exporting cotton grower while continuing to supply subsidised water to all the smaller and less efficient growers. I don’t know the outcome, but it’s in keeping with so-called economic policies which seek to protect vested interests rather than encourage growth. The latest mad example is Beattie saying he didn’t want uranium mined in Queensland, in order to protect the coal industry! Deep thinking there, Peter. And please don’t mention “creative destruction” in Queensland …

Under the Macquarie-Cudgegong Water Sharing plan an Environmental Flows Reference Group (EFRG) makes decisions on the use of the environmental allocation in the Macquarie river system. This group is made up of NSW Government agency representatives - Dept Natural Resources, Fisheries and Department of Environment Conservation; and community group representatives including irrigators, graziers and conservationists.
The EFRG advised the NSW Government to release the environmental water when antecedent conditions in the Marshes reached certain identified trigger points.
The facts are that 660,000 mega litres (ML) flowed into the Macquarie system between July 05 and March 06. Burrendong Dam captured 570,000ML. Only 147,000ML were measured at Marebone Weir flowing into the Marshes over the same period of time.

The statistics relating to water availability quoted in Jennifer Mahorasy's opinion piece are based on modelled information which continues to change and is not based on real outcomes on the ground.

There has been no successful bird breeding event in the Macquarie Marshes for 6 years regardless of private or public ownership of the land. Prior to the construction of Burrendong Dam millions of birds bred every year. The study referred to showing an increase in bird breeding events since 1986 has not been identified.

There are a range of issues relating to the harvesting of environmental water into on farm storage as well as the system of levee banks referred to in the article. All of these problems need addressing. As does the efficient use of water to grow irrigated crops.

The need for more water back to the environment is evident throughout NSW. The current parlous state of the Macquarie Marshes is a symbol of the failure of the NSW water reform process. Our river systems are not healthy.

Future,
Your comment that there were major bird breeding events every year before the dam was built is nonsense.
Since quantitative monitoring commenced in 1986 there have been three major bird breeding events in 1990, 1998 and 2000.
Each of these has been larger than the one before according to information in Kingsford, R and Auld, K (2003) Waterbird breeding in the Macquarie Marshes - a guide to river health, NSW Nat Parks & Wildlife Service.
Other bird breeding references are Brooker, MG 1992. Waterbirds of the Macquarie Marshes, CSIRO Division of Wildlife Ecology and McGrath, MJL 1991. Waterbird breeding in the Macquarie Marshes 1989. NSW Dept of Water Resources and Brereton, G. 1994. The History of Investigations into the Macquarie Marshes - Stage 1 Biophyscial Investigations. MDBC.

The issue is not really 'how are the Macquarie Marshes doing' ? But rather, 'who is getting most of the water' ? The main stakeholders are the irrigators, the graziers and the environment. Depending on what is at stake competition between them varies. Sometimes the irrigators and graziers will side together against the environment and then at other times they will be at loggerheads. The government needs to be seen to be fair and not to be handing out water to the highest bidder.

Future, Cay, the main issue with irrigation water is that it is grossly under-priced, encouraging excessive and inefficient use. Users of course recognised this, and the value of water rights has become built into property prices, making it difficult to unwind. Although the COAG water reform agreement about a decade ago provided that all new water supply should be priced at the full cost of provision (which is dominated by the capital cost) and that pricing for "old" water should be more cost-reflective, there has been only lip-service to this in Queensland and probably elsewhere. Assessments of the viability of the Paradise Dam, for example, were based on user surveys indicating supply at existing prices, which I calculated were on average in Queensland 23% of the cost of supply - not even enough to cover marginal costs and maintenance. (Even then, there was no prospect of the dam being viable.) Earlier discussions on the Dawson Dam were based on prices which were viable for farmers, but far below the expected cost of supply. Environmental degradation will continue so long as under-pricing continues.

“Graziers like water, and the cheaper it is, the better. Environmentalists thrive on crises - no environmental problems, no crusades.”

What a terrible way to start. No pretences of being unbiased, just straight into knocking the stuffing out of environmentalists. Wonderful.

Surely a comparable statement to “Graziers like water, and the cheaper it is, the better” would have been something like; ‘Environmentalist like a healthy environment that gets the water it needs to remain healthy’.

Needless to say, most environmentalists loathe being involved in any sort of confrontation or hassle. So mush so, that only a very small portion of people who share concerns about any particular environmental issue actually become involved in it in any significant manner.

“Their photographs suggest the cattle would be having a significant impact on ground flora and fauna and water quality. But the data necessary to understand this impact is not being collected.”

Well at least there is a passing though here, but nothing more.

There is merit in environmentalists forming an alliance with graziers if it means more water for the environment. But intensive grazing has its own set of very significant ecologically degrading factors. It is certainly a crying shame that these factors don’t appear to be monitored on private land, or even in the reserves apparently.

While large and diverse bird populations can coexist with cattle, grazing changes the balance between different grass and herbaceous species with the elimination of some, leads to the thickening up of woody species in conjunction with reduced fire, and often facilitates the introduction of weeds. Related faunal changes are often very significant.

So it is a real trade-off for environmentalists to secure half-decent water supplies for environmental reasons, if it means that the same water is being used for grazing or agricultural purposes.

Jennifer,
How do references to bird breeding events post 1986, without an indication of the volume of water in each of the 1990, 1998 and 2000 events or of the antecedent conditions in the Marshes before receiving the floods in those years; make my statement relating to pre Burrendong Dam conditions ridiculous?
Future

Future,
You made the statement that:
"Prior to the construction of Burrendong Dam millions of birds bred every year."
This suggests that prior to the construction of the dam, inland Australia was not a land of drought and floods? That there was always water?
It is my understanding that waterbirds 'disappeared' during dry times, and there were plenty of those before the dam was built. I understand there were about 15 major flood events in the 50 years between 1900 and 1950.

Future you have made two major errors. Firstly your assumption that millions of birds bred in the Macquarie Marshes every year before the Burrendong Dam was built is quite wrong. The period 1900 to 1949 was quite dry with some long drought periods, and records are clear that when the Marshes were dry the waterbirds went elsewhere.
Secondly your assumption that water that flows into the dam is water that should be flowing into the Marshes is also wrong. Under natural conditions the Marshes got about one third of the flow in the river. The other two thirds went to a variety of distributary creeks and small wetlands, and the river channel itself which is hundreds of kilometers long.
Ludwig asks how can we get the best outcome for the environment here? As Jennifer points out grazing and levees and channels built in the Marshes are having a much greater impact on it than its water allocation.

Brolga,
Those distributary creeks and smaller wetlands were originally all part of the Macquarie wetlands system and birds bred in all those places.
50% of Australia's wetland systems have now been destroyed. There are very few 'other' places for water birds to go to.
According to Department of Natural Resources - the years 2001 to 2004 have been the driest 3-year period on record for Marshes inflows while 2002/03 was the driest 12-month period on record for the Marsh inflows.
Although there have been lots of dry times that are natural to the Australian climate, it is my understanding that a core area of the Marshes remained wet because it naturally received a variety of low, medium and high flow events in the system.
Future

Future, if the marshes never dried out, then why is the North marsh dotted with wells all developed in the early 1900's? Why also did many of the early explorers livestock almost perish due to lack of water in the marshes? This is an ephemeral wetland with a very strong wetting and drying cycle.
Brolga

I'm interested in the 50% figure - that 50% of wetlands have been destroyed. What regions does this figure relate to?

Slightly off topic, but, I know that there are a lot more watering points now, than there were before European settlement, across Australia's rangelands because of dams and pumping from aquifers and ground water. So when some properties are declared national park the first thing is to destroy the dam because while brumbies, for example, need continual access to water, bilbies don't.

Jennifer and Brolga,

One of the references used (Kingsford, R and Auld, K (2003) Waterbird breeding in the Macquarie Marshes - a guide to river health, NSW Nat Parks & Wildlife Service.) states that:
“ Between 10,000 and 300,000 adult waterbirds rely on the Macquarie Marshes each season for their breeding, feeding and habitat requirements”
“Centrally, there are permanent and semi-permanent lagoons…”

Criteria 4 of the Ransar Convention listing is ’providing refuge in adverse conditions’. Macquarie Marshes is considered to be an important drought refuge when many other inland wetlands have dried out.

The birds don’t just breed in major flood events such as the 15 in the 50 years between 1900 and 1950 that Jennifer refers to.

This was demonstrated in the last season when a small Straw-necked Ibis breeding happened in the Low Bidgee and in the Lachlan.

The Low Bidgee event was successful because the irrigation community agreed to let the first high flow of a supplementary event to flow onto the birds before pumping. The Lachlan event was a small flush through a tributary. A stock & domestic user agreed to leave a weir pool full until the birds finished off. Neither of these were major flood events – just the right conditions and water for the right length of time.

It’s a pity this type of co-operation couldn’t occur in the Macquarie instead of different industries being pitted against each other. Articles such as Jennifer’s opinion piece do not help the situation.

Future

Future
You are right it would be great if we could have some cooperative problem solving in the Macquarie Valley. Unfortunately we've had years of "good grazier- bad irrigator" media campaigning by some waterbird scientists that have derailed the cooperative water sharing process. These waterbird scientists appear to be completely unaware of the diversions, channels and levees in the Marshes that Jennifer has brought to light.
Ludicrously the graziers have been able to convince conservationists and waterbird scientists that environmental water should go to private property at the expense of the Nature Reserves.
The irrigators, and some enlightened jounalists such as Jennifer, are the only ones defending the Nature Reserves and insisting that they be looked after.
Brolga

Brolga,
The Nature Reserves are only 10% of the Marsh area. I agree they have been degraded through lack of good flooding. The reasons are many and varied. But the private land is also extremely important in the wetland system as a whole.
There are some current projects studying the levee systems in the Marshes. Hopefully the reports will be available soon with some useful recommendations.
There have been some major decisions on water management and allocation announcements during the period of the 1996 Water Management Plan that denied the Marshes their rightful water share.
That is why they became so unseasonably dry prior to this drought of record.
The rules around the environment allocation are still very tight and restrict the ability to be truly adaptive in the management of the share.
There wouldn't be adverse media about the condition of the Marshes if they were in better shape.
It was the irrigation community that fought very publicly to prevent the 96 Plan from being implemented. The Water Sharing Plan has been a step backward in relation to environmental water share.
This significant wetland deserves more sophisticated consideration than has occurred to date.
Future

Future,
I was wondering whether you think anything should be done about the potential for overgrazing as evident in the two photographs (taken in 2002 and 2005) that you can link to from the following blog piece: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000958.html ?

Hello Marsh Chatterers - what a lot of noise and placing of blame! Since the bottom line of this debate seems to be “Macquarie Marshes” one must ask What is a Marsh? My dictionary says it is a wetland covered at times by water. So what is the best scientific way to ‘manage’ available water flows to ensure marshes remain marshes? It is not so much the amount of water, as how well the available water is managed that matters. Fat ducks and fat cattle are not part of this debate. The natural inhabitants of the Marshes will continue to favour them for their purposes if water is ‘managed’ to keep them as marshes. Otherwise, not being stupid, our beloved Aussi species will migrate to other favoured wet places in this great land of ours. Suggested solution would be if more land around this area were bought by Marsh Lovers, so that other uses for the current marsh water flows ceased to be an issue. The best possible circulation of available water through the area could then become a priority.

Migratory Spoon Bill

Future your comments about the water sharing plans are nonsense. There has been no backward steps for the Marshes in the last two plans, 1996 and 2004. Since 2000 there has been very little water to share, as you pointed out yourself earlier. This is hardly the fault of the plan.
Spoonbill suggests why don't conservation groups or the NSW Govt buy more country in the marshes since only 10% of it is reserved? What a great idea! It could then be managed for conservation, with the problems of overgrazing and water diversion/ manipulation highlighted in Jennifer's article overcome.
Brolga

What's this? Cheap beef on your plate verses the luxury of watching the wild birds breed in the Marshes? Due to threaten your chicken dinner, re bird-flu likelyhood of reaching our island shore, who is being vagilant enough to check, 'Duckfeetchinacafe,' has not imported this delicacy for use in its many outlets in Australia, via the black market, there will be neither meat on your plate.

Jennifer of course your rational approach is right and many have been concerned by the amazing alliance between NPWS scientists and graziers for some time. Much the same was true in the Cooper issue a few years ago. The impact of grazing on the drylands around the Cooper Basin was utterly neglected by the scientists in supporting graziers in the campaign against a proposal to irrigate around 10,000 ha out of a catchment area of perhaps 100,000 squ km + trashed by a century and a half of grazing. Perhaps the irrigation project was not a good idea but to ignore the impact of grazing on the whole catchment...give me a break.

R, I don't for a minute suggest we ignore the impact of grazing. I don't see how you can read this into the piece? There are photos of the impact of grazing at my blog, including at this post titled 'Cattle Killing the Macquarie Marshes': http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000949.html .

J sorry my poor syntax, I did not mean you ignored grazing, far from it, I meant in the case of the Cooper it was utterly, and still was last time I was Innamincka, ignored.

Rimsky your comments are interesting. In the case of the Macquarie Marshes, all its woes have been successfully placed at the door of the irrigation industry. This despite good evidence that the South Marsh was in deep trouble long before irrigation began.
We ignore the impact of grazing because we have all grown up with it for some generations now. It would be fascinating to compare the ecological health of a river system with no irrigation, only grazing to that of a river system with no grazing, only irrigation (but we don't have the latter).
I suspect the result would astonish us!
The MDBCs recent publication "The Darling" (2004) places enormous emphasis on the impact of irrigation whilst almost ignoring the consequences of grazing, especially during droughts, on these ecosystems.

Jennifer,
Just to answer a few of your previous questions:
The 50% loss of wetlands figure came from the Revive Our Wetlands website www.reviveourwetlands.net.
Another good website is the Federal Department of Environment and Heritage which outlines the Ramsar Convention.

I do agree that over grazing needs to be managed - on any country, especially during drought conditions. If you happen to drive through the Macquarie Valley and compare the grazed country to the completely bare, laser-levelled cotton paddocks without any native vegetation on them at all - it is difficult to understand this sudden concern about grazing.

The Government allowed a major cotton development to occur within the Marshes against its own policy of the 1980's.

Between 2001 and 2005 about 1,117,000ML flowed into the Macquarie system while 1,115,000ML was extracted downstream of Burrendong by licensed users.

Even if all the private property was purchased in the Marshes to create a major Nature Reserve, there would not be enough water allocated to keep the area healthy.

The 2003 Water Sharing Plan has 160,000ML available for environmental flows only when allocation is at 100%. There is only 50% reliability of this occuring in the Macquarie Valley because of over allocation. The 1996 Plan at least had 50,000ML of high security water that was available to the environment every year.

Wetlands need water. Colonial nesting birds need water over an adequate period of time to finish a breeding event. This hasn't happened in the Marshes for 6 years. I know that a lot of Australians don’t particularly care whether we continue to have native birds and animals survive in this country. However, our Governments have signed international agreements to look after significant places like the Macquarie Marshes and this needs to be respected.
Future

Regarding the Macquarie Marshes, there will come a time when certain stick in the mud politicians will perish along with greedy farm interests, billions of dollars of wasted taxpayer money and all the public service waffle. Then people will begin to realise that rains come from coastal ocean evaporation and not from a desert nation's water mismanagement schemes.

Drought and flood are part of Australian folklore but PROLONGED droughts are clearly man made. Unless and until water management schemes promote entry of precipitation from Sth Australian coastal rain bands, by greening a desert corridor from Port Augusta through Lake Eyre and onto Broken hill to encourage those rain bands inland, this PROLONGED drought will continue to plague the nation.

People are right to suspect a climate change apocalypse. And its already here: Labor driven, Soylent Green style state governments with their X city tunnel funnels, ghost M7s and Snowy/Monsanto 'we own what you eat and drink' political-private partnerships are stripping Australia bare of natural resources for short term profits. They are subverting electoral processes and the people's right to the bounty of this nation in order to conglomerate profits into a few manageable portfolios. People no longer warrant respect and are rapidly becoming political livestock to feed markets for corporate greed, with our Judas Goat state governments leading us to the tolled slaughter.

Things can and will get better if we rid ourselves of Political-Private Partnerships and supplant them with true Public-Private Partnerships! Federal and State politicians have to stop manipulating our economy to make life easy for themselves at the expense of the community at large.

Continued ..

Continuing ..
A successful Lake Eyre based climate manipulation pilot study is needed to show how we can stop the current prolonged drought, save the big inland river systems and put power back into the hands of the people. Selling the Snowy and paying farmers to stop hogging river waters (which is a crime already) is a contradictory process to saving rivers. It merely rewards the rich as they steal more from the poor. Given public apathy in any social setting you will always get this King John and his State Premier sherrifs of Nothingham pushing both the environment and the populace to their breaking point. Since history tells us over and over where this will lead us, I think it is time we elect new governments while we can. That will put the power over the environment and human rights back with the people and avoid the inevitable revolt from both the environment and the populace.

However the first step in this process of change is for people to stop being lazy and THINK through these problems for 'yourselves'. The notion that you can trust Howard, Costello and the State Governments, all of whom have been in power for far too long is extrordinarily naive.