The massive hype surrounding the Snowy, environmental flows and economic impacts are once again seemingly being assessed and acted upon by those who have overlooked certain obvious parts of the Snowy Mountains Hydro schemes inception. All the information that seems to be available is that the Jindabyne dam was created to facilitate electricity production, along the way , irrigation became fashionable to those along the Murray system and the increased usage of the drawn off water for agricultural production to the West has seen a dramatic reduction in the Snowy River quality. There are farmers and producers who use / used the water from the Snowy but their numbers are declining in line with the decreased viability of irrigation availability from the lower river reaches. Anyone who wishes may visit our house at the ocean mouth of the Snowy and sit and watch it once again silt closed.

So, Achis, are you claiming that the National Land and Water Audit data is wrong?

This anecdotal stuff about the mouth being silted up is really dishonest. Given the nature of the catchment and the nature of the rainfall in most of it, there is not the slightest doubt that the mouth of the Snowy was always silted up for part of the year in presettlement times.

Those times would certainly include late November after the spring melt is over. So what you people have been saying about silted river mouth is downright fraudulent.

What I would like to see from the proponents of this Snowy "restoration" scam is a list of all the aquatic species that are found, or were found, in the Snowy or Mitchell rivers. And then please identify the species that have actually died out in the Snowy after 40 years of captured snow melt but still remain in the Mitchell.

Come on folks, give us some real data to work with?

What a drongo you are Perseus, its only industry funded front groups have the resources for that sort of research! Why do you think the Federal government has been defunding CSIRO L&W and the ENGO's for ten years, but to stem the flow of inconvenient facts.

Incidentally, do you run cover for ALL the Institute for Public Affairs offshoots that post to OLO? Your expertise on climate change, hydrology, forestry and engineering is indeed impressive (chortle).

Gee Perseus, when contributing an opinion to this forum, i hardly expected such vitriol, but never the less, I will take it on board. I am not, as some may assume, a member of any conservation , farming or industry group. I do not earn a living from agriculture, or in any particular way gain anything from the Snowy River other than catching the occasional fish for a meal and relaxing along its banks and tributaries. All I know as far as the history of the Snowy goes is that there used to be shallow draught, sea going vessels navigating its reaches to near Orbost, some 15 klms upstream of the mouth, from anything I have read or seen in photographs, this activity used to be a year round occurrence, with the mouth only ever closing over in years of extreme drought. These days the degredation of the river has lead to frequent closures and even at the best of times in the terms of river flow it is near impossible to get my 3.8 m boat much further than 1/2 way to Orbost. Given that my personal experiences of the river go back to the early 70's, I refuse to be told that people are manufacturing claims about the health of the river for nothing other than personal gain, I have seen many changes occur and they are of a whole, totally in line with the claims being made about the river health.

So tell me, Achis, what, exactly, in my previous post would you describe as vitriole? Describing something as a scam? Surely you wouldn't be trying to defame me by anny chance?

I could name you a number of rivers without major dams that used to be navigable a lot further than they are today. In those days they had the good sense to go up with the tide and use local knowledge of seasonal conditions. Even the Darling River once had a port at Burke, NSW but they ceased using it long before any dams were built.

So is your little anecdote based on high tide or low? And best check your facts on the time of the year when this navigation took place. And your implied claim to have no vested interest is a bit rich. You just want all that water to landscape your front/back yard.

So much detailed research and vitriol being expended on head-butting absolutely anything with a hint of green about it ! We are witnessing a number of extraordinary outbursts against all forms of conservation of our environment on this web site - don't know if the same is happening on others as well, don't have time to do the survey but someone should.

Wonder who's paying ? and what vested interests might be behind a lengthy critique of one small effort to restore just one iconic river in this country. Anyway the obvious increase in temperatures which we are experiencing will cause further desiccation of catchments and river systems in our poor dry continent - wonder if that is taken into account by I. Mott & co. ?