Governments giving up on our Lower Lakes
It seems the Rudd and Rann Governments are prepared to wave the white flag rather than take a stand and save the River Murray's Lower Lakes. They are either doing so with their eyes shut, not fully aware of the consequences, or are hiding details of the consequences from an anxious public.
The Rann Government has started $30 million of "preparatory work" on a weir at Wellington, supposedly to preserve Adelaide's water supply but sacrificing the Lower Lakes at a cost we might feel for many years to come.
Meanwhile, federal Water Minister Penny Wong has effectively thrown her hands in the air, declaring any short-term action to save the Lakes all too hard.
However, before the Lakes are converted to salt water, we need some very important details to be made clear.
Firstly, data on water stored and allocated throughout the Murray-Darling system this year needs to be made public. Both publicly and privately held storages must be audited.
South Australians in particular must have confidence that there truly is no water that can be spared to save the Lower Lakes before they consent to cutting them adrift.
Until and unless that information is put on the table, South Australians can be forgiven for thinking Penny Wong and Karlene Maywald are simply apologists for upstream states extracting more water than can rightly be defended.
Secondly, there must be a full and transparent environmental assessment of the impact of saltwater flooding on the Lower Lakes, the Coorong, the wetlands and environs. Such a decision can only be made if we are fully aware of the consequences, what species will be killed, which migratory birds will be forced elsewhere and so on.
These are internationally recognised wetlands of which we should be proud and we should know all of the consequences of any action we take.
Thirdly, and perhaps with the greatest impact on all of us, we must know how this will affect the 1000 tonnes of salt that presently passes Wellington each day.
This is currently absorbed by the Lower Lakes and Coorong, but if these systems are cut off from the river it is widely suspected salt will simply build up towards the "new" end of the river before the weir, potentially as far back as Mannum from where Adelaide gets so much of its water supply.
If we can no longer rely on the Lower Murray for our drinking water, the critical human needs defence for not sending more environmental flows down the river becomes hollow.
Decisions to be made now about the Lower Lakes must be made with full awareness of the impact. We cannot afford to wake up in a decade to having engineered an even bigger problem for ourselves, akin to the draining of the marshes of southern Iraq or the drying up of Russia's Aral Sea.
Australia was one of the first signatories to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, but anyone could be forgiven for thinking our governments have not done absolutely everything in their power to protect our own ecosystems.
Why has the Government made concessions to Victoria that mean it will be 2019 before a truly national Basin Plan takes effect?
What is preventing the Government buying back more water licences, or immediately moving to an uncapped trade system that will ensure water goes where it is most valued and therefore put to most valuable use?
Until Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong, Mike Rann and Karlene Maywald can look us in the eye, tell us they've done absolutely everything else they can and explain the consequences of cutting the Lower Lakes adrift, there is still hope. But there are surely only so many times and in so many ways that we can say action is needed now.