Come on Nathan, we know all that, & can see another pile of garbage, which greens have used to try to stop irrigation simply because they are ratbags.

The river was salty when first discovered by Europeans, long before they cut down a single tree. The salt interception schemes were designed to deliver much less salt water than nature supplied, all for that South Oz artificial water sky lake they have built with their barrage.

If the greens were at all interested in nature they would be protesting until that monstrosity was pulled down. That they don't, & demand good useful water to fill it proves they are only interested in harming the productive, not in nature.

I use as much waster as I need, but never waste it! It is the most precious gift from God for us! Think about it!

Dear brownsnake174,

The Earth's water didn't come from God it came from outer space.

Dear Hasbeen,

Up to your old diversion tactics I see.

NathanJ posted about the Murray yet you banged on about the Darling.

Codswallop.

Yes they are part of the same system but the Darling comes from the North is infiltrated with salt springs which make up a proportion of its base flows. The Murray doesn't.

There is irrefutable evidence that salinity in the Murray was on the march until salinity schemes were introduced.

Salinity readings taken on the Murray at Morgan below the confluence with the Darling peaked some years at around 600EC in the 30s, 800EC in the 40s, 1000EC in the 50s, 1200EC in the 60s and remained high through until the 80s when salt mitigation works got underway in earnest.

Modelling shows that without these works the salinity levels would have been at record levels this century.
http://www.mdba.gov.au/sites/default/files/pubs/The-Basin-Plan-annual-report-2014-15_1.pdf

So yes farming practices and water diversions did lead to increased salt loads in the Murray River and anyone claiming otherwise is a charlatan.

Now I don't mind you having head in the sand on this stuff, that's just a product of ignorance which we can all accept, but when you go and accuse people of lying, twisting the facts, of writing disgusting posts with false research then you need to be pulled up, especially as you can probably be seen as wearing many of the same labels.

The Murray estuary has always been more or less salty. When the first missionary, George Taplin, set up a mission barely ten miles from the river mouth at Pt McLeay, the first thing he did was dig a well. Why ? The mission is on Lake Alexandrina. Because the Lake was brackish even then. When river flow was really low, the sea water reached up as far as Blanchetown: dolphins were seen fifty miles up the river. At least one whale got itself stranded in Lake Alexandrina. It's all in Taplin's Journal, on my web-site: www.firstsources.info

And by the way, the Coorong - despite a news item on the ABC this morning - is not fresh-water, but extremely saline.

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

Indeed it was.

Have you ever had the opportunity to visit Chinaman's Well on the Coorong?
http://lakeshub.com/2013/08/08/chinamens-well-on-the-coorong-2/

Being denied landing in Victoria because of the 10 pound poll tax imposed by the Victorian government many landed in SA before setting out overland.

Quite a history in the area.