About putting in more dams on farms, does anyone remember when the Government put a tax on stored water?

One property that I hunt on has about a dozen large dams, the owner put the dozer through the lot and never paid tax; another local bloke has dams of various sizes all over his property and all holding water and he paid no tax.

When he was billed for tax he pointed out to the Government that they had asked him if he minded them building said dams on his property as an experiment; so he told them that if they didn't want THEIR dams to hold water then they could breach them.

Dams can stop natural water supply getting to other people.
Belly is talking about using ptesebtly unused waste water, waste water that is causing problems in ocean ecosystems.

Belly, if water was piped from coastal Qld or northern coastal NSW across the mountains to the headwaters of the Darling, it would just be used to expand irrigation farming in the upper Darling and upper tributaries. An impractically huge amount would needed to be transferred to get any flow in the lower Darling after seepage into the groundwater and evaporation (seepage into the groundwater is very useful, and not a waste because it helps the soil, dilutes salinity etc.)

The upper irrigators, mostly big corporations, some global, who have huge farms (compared to the family farms on the lower Darling) couldn't bear to see so much water going past, and they have the muscle to pressure government to get more of it and to avoid prosecution if they take it illegally, which is what has been happening already. Indeed an economic rationalism argument can be made for getting rid of all the small irrigators and just supporting the big guys up north. But is that what we really want?

Then there's another factor. The coastal areas of northern NSW and southern Queensland, from Port Macquarie to the Gold Coast, have some of the fastest growing populations outside the big cities; there would be a strong pushback against their water being taken inland.

I think this is really the heart of the issue with the idealistic proposals to move water from the coastal rivers inland. Because of the cost and logistics, in general it wouldn't actually help the small farmers and graziers whose plight we're hearing about; it would more likely benefit big agribusiness

At least Belly is aware of damage being done by nutrient over-load waste water dumped into rivers and ocean coast waters.
I wonder when other people and Australian government will wake up.

http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/weather/new-why-red-tide-killing-spree-florida/pKBrmy4zR75rMrQK1JVwsM/amp.html?__twitter_impression=true

And, unprecedentedly strong;

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092585741400263

Of course there'll be droughts when they cut down all the trees. Anyone ever see droughts in forests ?

Well let us not start plowing the ground to grow food for China yet, my view is improving life and productivity for our suffering farmers and nation building over maybe two hundred years starting with small steps, however ABC online news this morning talks of use of trees and grasses to help, their words not mine, drought proof the out back,are we forever to dump our waste including sewage in to the sea? let us first pump that inland, even if it is less than 100 kilometers inland.the costs surely can be no more than what is paid to pump drinking water around our cities even to them via existing dam to city pipes