The former Howard Government promised $10 billion and created a new Commonwealth water act supposedly to save the Murray-Darling river system.
Then it sat on its hands and did almost nothing, except plan to rob other catchment areas of freshwater and risk further environmental degradation.
Now there is no more time left for the Murray-Darling. Recent flooding in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales are little more than a mirage when it comes to returning a strong environmental flow to this large river system.
The new Rudd Government has made a start, but I for one don't want to see federal government become so focussed on balancing the budget that it forgets it must act swiftly to make up for the years of inaction.
As for the NSW Government. If I remember my map, this state has the highest concentration of irrigators drawing from the Murray-Darling system. Time for Morris Iemma to stop pretending that there is any water to return to irrigators if he doesn't want to see the river dead within a decade.
"STRETCHES of the Murray River are turning into the corrosive equivalent of battery acid, in further evidence the devastating drought is causing more harm to the nation's iconic watercourse.
Scientists are warning that acid sulphate soils are turning river banks and billabongs into death traps for fish and birds and hazards for humans.
It is impossible for animals to survive NSW's Bottle Bend lagoon, which now has a pH -- or acidity -- level dropping as low as 1.8 -- equivalent to the sulphuric acid found in car batteries. And it is corrosive to the touch.
The waterway is just one of dozens of sites throughout South Australia, NSW and Victoria which falling water levels have turned into aquatic graveyards."
The Australian article yesterday:
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