Draft plan won’t fix sick Murray-Darling

Media Release
The Wilderness Society (Sydney) Inc.
28 November 2011

The Murray-Darling is one sick river system, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s draft plan released today will not change that horrible reality, the Wilderness Society said. Furthermore, it will also guarantee the waste of $10 billion of taxpayers’ money set aside to save it.

“This daft plan will not fix the system, let alone improve it, yet it will cost Australian taxpayers $10 billion,” said Wilderness Society Rivers Campaigner Chris Daley. “The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s ill-fated guide to the plan last year said that anything less than 3000 gigalitres returned to the river system will do little to improve the health of the river.

“What has been forgotten today in all the outcry from irrigators, communities and conservationists is exactly how sick the river system is: 90 per cent of the native fish population has been lost, along with 80 per cent of the waterbird population, 90 per cent of the floodplain wetlands and 80 per cent of the river red gums forests are stressed, dead or dying.

“Under this plan, the biodiversity gold mines that were Australia’s wetlands will continue to decline, with 70 per cent of the vegetation of the Gwydir wetlands and 35 per cent Macquarie Marshes to be lost; and the Black Box woodlands and River Red Gum forests virtually condemned to death.

“Irrigated agriculture takes 95 per cent of the basin’s water, leaving next to nothing for the natural environment, the floodplain farmers or even drinking water for the basin’s many communities including Adelaide.

“Two million tonnes of salt has built up behind the barrages every year and threatens to destroy South Australia’s iconic Coorong and the lower lakes.

“And the salt is not just a threat to the natural environment. While the irrigators cry foul, they turn their back on the fact that 80 per cent of NSW’s irrigated land is suffering from rising water tables and associated salinity that will slowly render the land useless. The draft plan does nothing to mitigate these problems, as the water-quality targets it sets are merely 'aspirational'.

“MDBA chair Craig Knowles says ‘situation normal’ is no longer good enough, but this daft plan delivers a blueprint for ‘business as usual.’ Far from being a rescue plan to save the river, it is a one-way ticket to ecological disaster. Far from being about ‘more than a number’, the plan is a $10 billion bill to the Australian taxpayer with nothing to show for it.”

For more information, please contact:
Chris Daley: 0451 007 915