The Coorong needs water now!

Silhouettes of a Coorong sunset. Photo: The Wilderness Society Collection

The Lower Murray Lakes and Coorong area has been starved of water for so long that it is almost dead.

Listed under the RAMSAR convention as a wetland of international significance, Australia is failing dismally in its obligation to protect this iconic part of the world.

We have known for a decade or more that the amount of water pumped out of the Murray Darling Basin for irrigation is completely unsustainable and needs to be reduced.

A unique opportunity now exists to fix this problem, it simply requires the political will to do so…Mr Rann, Mr Rudd, the Australian Labor Party…please save the Coorong!

Despite all the talking by governments, very little has been done and we are now dealing with an environmental disaster and political embarrassment of international proportions.
 
The Rudd Government has committed billions of dollars to buy water from the irrigation industry and return it to the river system.
 
This money must be spent immediately.

The time to act is now

For every month of delays, our precious Coorong, that Colin Thiele’s book Storm Boy immortalized, gets sicker and sicker. If it dies, a special part of Australia’s identity dies too.
 
An obvious place to start is the release of 100s of gigalitres held in the Menindee Lakes, letting it flush through the river to the Lower Lakes and Coorong.
 
There are 100s, in fact 1000s of gigalitres currently held behind dams and weirs. The argument that there is no water in the basin is a political furphy.
 
The Federal Government blaming the States, or the States blaming each other can no longer be used as an excuse, as today we have wall to wall Labor Governments in power.

What you can do to give the Coorong a future

Please contact (via phone, letter, email) the offices of one, or all of the following ministers - and ask them what specific actions they're undertaking to save the Lower Murray Lakes and Coorong area.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 6277 7700
Visit www.pm.gov.au to send an email

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 6277 7640

Federal Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong
PO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
(02) 6277 7920

SA Premier Mike Rann
GPO Box 2343
Adelaide SA 5001
(08) 8463 3166

Key recommendations to protect the Lower Murray Lakes and Coorong area include:

• That a guaranteed annual environmental water entitlement be purchased for the Lower Murray Lakes and Coorong and released into the Ramsar site immediately.
• The flooding of the Ramsar site with sea water must not occur unless it is done in conjunction with the release of fresh water into the Lower Lakes system from the River Murray.
• The viability of pumping hyper saline water out of the Southern Lagoon of the Coorong and into the Southern Ocean via a temporary pipeline should be assessed immediately.
  

 Download recommendations from the South Australian Environment Movement (PDF 40KB)