Its only "stone age" people who believe in such nonsense as serpents, oh no, modern day Europeans wouldn't believe in a load of biblical fairy tails, about people living in gardens, arks and whales for example. I have a couple of JW's call on me, and when it comes to beliefs they are more tutti-fruiti, than the average forum Old Fart. There was one Old Fart here banging on about place names, this story is about the Ashburton River, not only is it a river in WA, its also a place in Victoria, and a city in Canada. I would like to see my local area renamed from its bastardised English name to the indigenous name it was know by for 20,000 years.

Hassy old cock, you haven't mentioned for some time that other old cock living up the road from you, who you said had a thermometer in his chook shed that proves climate change is a hoax. Did he fall off the perch or some such thing? Maybe he drowned in the last unexpected flood cased by climate change.

Looks like there's another "stolen" bandwagon in the making. Some bright spark only just now realised that Aborigines were taken to Makassar over the Centuries.

The laws on water rights are different in each state. In South Aus for example even the rain water that falls on your roof belongs to the state.

In Queensland any riparian land holder is entitled to stock & domestic water from an adjacent river. They may do minor works, such as installing a foot valve in the water course for pumping, but may not indulge in earth works, such as building a weir or digging a hole in the river bed.

During the 1993/4 drought our river stopped flowing for about 5 months each year. Most of us had a puddle somewhere where the water still flowing through the 3 meter deep sand in the bottom of the river bed allowed us to pump enough water for stock. I had a 600mm deep 10 meter diameter pool packed with small fish, prawns & even a couple of small eels.

I installed a 300mm PVC pipe with fine slots cut into it vertically in the bottom of the pool to strain out the wildlife, with a 8 liter/minute 12V pump, pumping enough stock water up the 25 meters to a collection of drums & bath tubs at the top of the river bank.

Many had something similar. When the down stream pools started going dry we found a turf farmer had dug an Olympic pool size hole in the river bed to gather enough water to irrigate, sucking the entire flow for a period each day. The local irrigation committee had to inform him this was illegal. We could see his problem. No irrigation meant no turf & no cash to pay the mortgage, but he had to fill the hole. Luckily he found a job off farm to tide him over.

If our river has a serpent I will happily cut it's head off, I will not be ruled by stone age myths, but I will not see anyone take more than a fair share of any water from his down stream neighbors.

I am secretary of our local irrigation committee. Our charter demands that if there is water flowing into the top of our stretch of river complex, there is water flowing out of the bottom of it. To achieve this we impose restrictions on ourselves.

First we restrict the number of days we can pump water, then we restrict the number of hours per day we can pump. There is some flexibility in this, & small user with a 5,000 gallon/hour pump may be allowed a longer pump period than one with a 40,000 gallon/hour instillation, but not much. For those who are interested, it takes 25,000 gallons to put an inch on an acre.

We also have a large sand miner on our stretch of river. No washing plant means no sand production. They have been great in establishing settling ponds to ensure quality of water, & making sure most of their usage is returned to the river for down stream use. They also have a couple of bores the use of which may actually augment the river flow.

We don't use as much water today as 30 years ago. The last dairy farm closed a few years back, as did the last big market garden. The Vietnamese family who worked their backsides off for not much, are much happier running a few trucks. As it gets harder every year to make a living producing food, I guess that will have to be imported from China sometime soon too, & our fresh water can run uselessly out to sea to kill the coral.

Dear Hasbeen,

How's it going old cock? Good?

You say: “Having been given their ridiculous myths, such as CO2 will heat up the earth”.

CO2 already heats up the earth mate and has done for a very long time. It has little regard for you cultish beliefs, superstitions and anti-science, Trump fed views of the world.

Well it is good to see you have loosened, even if only slightly, your I'm all right Jack and bugger the rest mentality. You have realised that the system is connected and loam farmers putting in big dams to harvest water is not on.

Most people broaden their world view as they age. Their empathy extends to wider and wider groups as they mature, often to other species and ecosystems. To say yours has been severely stunted is an understatement.

Given the eels in your stretch of the river are probably short finned ones which are born in the Coral Sea and migrate up Eastern seaboard rivers during summer flows which are now severely restricted, your wanting to grasp all the water purely for human use would kill them off in your river. That is what "cutting the serpent's head off" entails and you would revel in it wouldn't you.

This country is really going to be a lot better off when dinosaurs and their reptilian brains fade away.

Water allocation & irrigation & indeed the bulk of present & immediate future infrastructure need new thinking & for that new brains are needed. The present ones are failing the Nation !