The South Australian Government are planning to build a weir at Wellington, which is situated on the Murray just before it enters Lake Alexandrina. The motivation is to provide more water to irrigators in times of drought, as stated in this media release.
The problem with this is the effect it is likely to have on the Coorong, which is a long, narrow strip of water along the coast from the Murray mouth and stretching over 100km to the south east. This wetland environment is in serious trouble as described in detail here, the reason is essentially a lack of water making it to the Murray mouth. The responsibility for this is shared by South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and I believe that Mike Rann is correct in claiming that the SA irrigators are the most efficient, however being the best of a bad bunch is not necessarily good enough. Too much water has been taken out for irrigation throughout the whole system, and now in drought there is nothing left for environmental flows, i.e. to keep the river system alive. This has manifested in a number of ways including the death of a huge number of the river red gums along the length of the river. In the Coorong in particular the situation is at crisis level, the wetlands are quite literally dying. It will take a big effort to change this, but it seems pretty certain at least that restricting flows with another weir will ensure that it does not survive.
This area is supposed to be protected by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, but it seems that the Government has a way to weasel out of this (link is a pdf), Greens MP Mark Parnell is trying to close this loophole.
In the meantime the people of SA have to get out and show the government that they don’t want to stand by while the Coorong dies. A local activist group from the lower Murray region called The River, Lakes and Coorong have started up a campaign to Stop the Weir. They already had a protest out at Milang a couple of weeks ago, this weekend they bring it to the centre of Adelaide, get out there and show the Government that we will not stand by while they kill off the Coorong.
Thanks Stu, it’s good to hear what’s happening back in Adelaide on water issues, as I get all east-coast focused and don’t keep up to date. I think you’re right about irrigation, and I think that while good work has happened and there are some forward thinking farmers out there, the whole way we do water in relation to food needs to change. I think it’s interesting to bring food prices and food waste into the equation. Nationally we use most of our water on farming, and yet in homes, on average 40% of what gets put out in waste bins is food waste. Lots of this is food that goes from supermarket to fridge shelf to bin to landfill – ie is food waste rather than just scraps. And of course this represents a waste of embodied water and nutrients, and needless greenhouse gas emissions – not just a waste of food. I think that changing the cost of food, and the cost of water could influence how we treat both – and this is coming from someone who is generally suspicious of the magic of ‘market forces’ to solve social and environmental problems.