North Coast fishermen and cane farmers oppose any Clarence River water diversion

Excerpt from The Land article Clarence River can’t ‘spare a drop’ on 19 November 2010:

While North Coast primary producers have a lot more sympathy for the plight of inland irrigators than they do for the Queenslanders in population overdrive, they say that despite the image most people have of the massive Clarence the reality is the river cannot spare a drop.

The fresh water flushes during floods are the lifeblood of the region’s fishing industry, the biggest supplier of seafood in NSW, sustaining 140 wild harvest commercial fishermen.

Professional Fishermen’s Association executive officer, John Harrison, Maclean, said the fresh water flows brought nutrients and the opportunity for fish growth and there was “no room for a single drop” to be taken from the system without a detrimental impact on the fishing industry and environment.

Beef producer, Elizabeth Fahey, who has double frontage to the Clarence on her Brahman breeding property at Copmanhurst, said there were times during dry spells when she could walk across parts of the river without getting her feet wet.

“The practicalities are that the expense of setting up the infrastructure required to allow inland producers to utilise water in times of high flow would not make the scheme viable, when the access to water would not be all the time,” she said.

While sugar producers in the Clarence don’t irrigate, NSW Canegrowers chairman, Vince Castle, said the region could not do without its fishing industry and the overwhelming feeling among cane growers was “utter opposition” to the concept.