Around the traps in the last few days.....

A bit of free promotion APN didn't need?
With the euthanasia debate heating up, I was amused to see that APN Outdoor received a bit of free promotion on the nightly news last week after one of its outdoor billboards advertising in Yagoona ran a large advert promoting the pro-choice position. Probably won't please the bishops.

Fine print on the back of that NBN envelope?
NATIONAL Broadband Network users will not be able to use their telephones in a power failure unless they pay for a back-up system.
Telstra copper lines will be replaced by NBN fibre as part of the $11 billion deal with the federal government.
NBN Co has a hands-off approach to ensuring lines will be available at all times.
Customers will rely on the fibre network for broadband and fixed telephone services. Each home and business will need a network termination unit for power.
The unit needs a standard 240 volt, 10 amp power outlet and without that it cannot work.
If the unit loses power, telephone lines will not work unless NBN users have a back-up battery system, an optional item under NBN Co guidelines.
The peak electrical body says NBN Co and the government must ensure service providers guarantee basic telephone services or people's lives could be in danger in emergencies.
The company says it will not supply, install or maintain the battery back-up. That means network users will have to purchase a back-up unit and battery, and ensure the unit is next to a power outlet.
Users must buy the back-up unit from their NBN service provider. The 12V 7.2Ah sealed lead acid battery for the back-up costs about $50. {The Australian 22nd October 2010}

NSW water raiders using #agchatoz to tweet their displeasure....
nswirrigators: 464 pages of Volume Two of #basinplan just released online. Saving the environment by ruining a forest? http://tinyurl.com/3x4umuw #agchatoz
nswirrigators: 3.30pm on the day #basinplan volume two was meant to be released and nothing yet. These people do not learn... #agchatoz #abcrural

A victim of friendly fire
"This is a debate that Australians need to have about the future of banking, and the banks now are clearly ignoring the government," Mr Hockey has said. "The Australian people need to know where the banking system is going."....
Liberal MP Don Randall launched into a withering attack on Mr Hockey's suggestion, labelling a "typical lunatic fringe idea" from the Greens - until it was pointed out that it came from the Coalition's top money man. "It's really going to have a negative effect on our economy ... it's really a worry". {news.com.au 21st October 2010}

Ad astra takes on Tony
Take the attack on the Government by Tony Abbott over the contemporary court martial of three Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. In a particularly contemptible assault he accused the Government of ‘stabbing the soldiers in the back’ and not giving them the support they deserved, of abandoning these men fighting as they are for their country. It was a powerful and aggressive strike. Yet what did the mild-mannered Stephen Smith say? He said Abbott’s words were ‘unfortunate’. Too right they were, but in the hurly burley of politics, words hardly like to make headlines, hardly likely to effectively rebut the Abbott charges.
I would have preferred him to say to Abbott: “How dare you have the temerity to make such outrageous accusations. It was the Howard Government, in which you were a minister that created the process for such trials of servicemen thought to be in contravention of the rules of engagement, and it had bipartisan support from Labor. You know perfectly well that in this process Government has no part to play, nor have politicians or politics. You know that this Government wants the process YOU established to bring about a considered outcome and that it wishes to play no part in it. Yet you come along with this completely illegitimate accusation which you know is dishonest, in order to score political points. And you were only too willing to enlist Alan Jones to promulgate this deception, something he was only too ready to do. Worse still, you allowed him, without contradiction, to denigrate the female prosecutor for laying the charges, even although you knew that she was acting completely in accordance with the process the Howard Government established. How dare you behave in this disgracefully disingenuous way, cast aspersions on those involved, and the Government too, although it is NOT involved. This is worse even that the usual low standards of political discourse which you employ. You are a disgrace.” {The Political Sword 22nd October 2010}

Too much fiction in Pollieville, U.K.?
A BRITISH MP enraged her constituents and her party after letting slip that her blog, which tells people how hard she works, is "70 per cent fiction".
Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire in southern England, made the admission to investigators during a sleaze inquiry that cleared her of abusing the Government's expenses system but found that she misled voters. {news.com.au 22nd October 2010}

NSW Irrigators Council proves that tweeting doesn't improve intelligence

nswirrigators

If the MDBA's new #basinplan study involves WWF lobbyists "Wentworth Group", it should and will be rejected. #agchatoz 7:23 PM Oct 17th via Twitter for iPhone

How sad it is to see the Murray Darling Basin water security debate reduced to such a mean, pointless and rather inaccurate characterization.

This is what the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists states about itself:

MEMBERS - Dr Neil Byron, Mr Peter Cosier, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Quentin Grafton, Dr Ronnie Harding, Prof David Karoly, Prof Hugh Possingham FAA, Mr Robert Purves AM, Dr Denis Saunders AM, Prof Bruce Thom AM FIAG FTSE, Dr John Williams, Prof Mike Young FASSA,
FORMER MEMBERS Prof Peter Cullen AO FTSE, Ms Leith Boully FAIC, Prof David Lindenmayer FAA

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists is an independent group comprising leading Australian environmental, economists, scientists and business leaders with conservation interests.

The Wentworth Group has three core objectives:

1.Driving innovation in the management of Australia’s land, water and marine resources;
2.Engage business, community and political leaders in a dialogue to find and implement solutions to the challenge of environmental stewardship facing the future of Australian society;
3.Building capacity by mentoring and supporting young scientists, lawyers and economists to develop their skills and understanding of public policy.
Background
Since coming together in November 2002, the Wentworth Group has been the catalyst for a series of ground breaking land and water reforms across Australia.

The Wentworth Group’s first statement, Blueprint for a Living Continent, set out what it believed were the key changes that needed to be made to deliver a sustainable future for our continent and its people. They emphasised the need to:

•Clarify water property rights and the obligations associated with those rights to give farmers some certainty and to enable water to be recovered for the environment.
•Restore environmental flows to stressed rivers, such as the River Murray and its tributaries.
•Immediately end broadscale landclearing of remnant native vegetation and assist rural communities with adjustment. This provides fundamental benefits to water quality, prevention of salinity, prevention of soil loss and conservation of biodiversity.
•Pay farmers for environmental services (clean water, fresh air, healthy soils). Where we expect farmers to maintain land in a certain way that is above their duty of care, we should pay them to provide those services on behalf of the rest of Australia.
•Incorporate into the cost of food, fibre and water the hidden subsidies currently borne by the environment, to assist farmers to farm sustainably and profitably in this country.........

In 2008 the Wentworth Group with other scientists put forward an Interim Basin Plan as a model for excelerating water reform across the Muray-Darling Basin in a senate submission: 'The urgent provision of water to the Coroong and Lower Lakes'.

The Wentworth Group remains committed to using its combined experience, interdisciplinary expertise and shared values to work with others to improve the long term management and conservation of the Australian landscape.

Funding
The Wentworth Group exists thanks to the generous support of the Purves Environmental Fund.

Purvis Environmental Fund according to itself and Source Watch.

Some campaign slogans never die.........

This is the 2007 campaign slogan used in the Clarence Valley in the fight to stop the Howard-Turnbull-Vaile attempt to raid this catchment's fresh water.

What a pity that less than three years later this slogan is just as relevant, as once more the water raiders seek the ear of Federal Government touting the idea that the Clarence River should be dammed and diverted.

Of course the 2007 water raiders behind the Howard-Turnbull-Vaile push never really went away and their political sock puppets continued to agitate for more water over those years.

Never one to waste an opportunity 'independent' representative for Murray Darling Basin irrigators/farmers,Tony Windsor, has been beating the drum on interbasin water transfers whenever he found an opening.

This is Windsor on Thursday, 18 September 2008 at 3:16 pm according to Open Australia:

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent)
My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to comments made by the Prime Minister, senior ministers and scientists that a major part of the Murray-Darling crisis is caused by climate change. Could the Prime Minister quantify how many gigalitres of lost inflows in the Murray-Darling system are caused by climate change? Given Professor Garnaut’s admission that his recommendations of five or 10 per cent emission reduction targets by 2020 will not alleviate the Murray-Darling crisis, would the Prime Minister initiate a cost-benefit analysis of potential intercatchment transfers of water to cancel out the climate change components of the reduction in inflows?

As one can see, Windsor takes the basic MDB irrigator positions as he tries for a new way to sing the old refrain:

• less water in the system is always someone else's fault - this time it's climate change.
• the answer to river system decline is not to reduce the chronic over-allocation of Basin water resources - it's to take someone else's water.

Since then the Independent Member for New England has extended the 'not our fault' argument and, this was Mr. Windsor on 14 October 2010 explaining to the world that (most uniquely among humans) Basin irrigators don't contribute to man-made climate change:

Mr Windsor said the MDBA should not allow water to be taken away from irrigators on account of climate change, because they were not responsible for the problem.

No wonder Clarence Valley residents are brushing off that slogan and again saying loudly and clearly...........

NOT A DROP!

Windsor confirms he's an environmental & economic eejit

Does a pollie come any greedier or dumber than this?
Did he not take any notice of evidence given at the 2007 Australian Senate inquiry which looked at the Clarence River?
Has he not noticed that the Snowy River is seriously f**ked?
This is the Member for New England and chair of the latest parliamentary water inquiry, Tony Windsor, yesterday:
FEDERAL independent Member for New England Tony Windsor says diverting water from the Clarence River is an option to revive the Murray Darling basin.
Mr Windsor, whose electorate shares a border with Page, said diversion of east coast rivers, including the Clarence, would be looked at by a parliamentary inquiry, of which he was a member, into the impact of Murray Darling Basin Plan.
“Diverting water into the Murray Darling system to avert the effects of climate change is a possibility,” he said.
“But where it comes from is an issue I don't want to get into debate about right now. There are a lot of options out there to be looked at yet.”
Mr Windsor, who previously flagged the idea of diverting the Clarence in 2007, said sending water west was possible.
“It's technically possible to bring eastern flowing water to the west as we have done with the snowy mountains scheme,” he said.

Saffin tells Parliament 'Not a drop' from the Clarence River

Bravo to Federal Labor’s Janelle Saffin who really is in tune with her electorate in this 18 October 2010 media release.

Saffin tells Parliament -- ‘Not a drop’

PAGE MP Janelle Saffin made it clear on the first day of the Parliamentary session that she would be vigilant on protecting the Clarence River against water raiders.

Ms Saffin today told Parliament that a lot of people are talking about wanting to get their hands on water from the Clarence River.

But she said the message from the local community in response to those looking at river diversion under the Murray-Darling Basin plan is this – “Not a drop”.

“Engineering-wise, we can do anything -- we can do marvels -- but in terms of the environment and also the viability of the Clarence, it would be a disaster.

“The catchment area of the Clarence River falls within 100 kilometres of the New South Wales coastal strip.

“Our industries are fishing -- we have a huge commercial fishing industry -- and agriculture, and the economy is heavily underpinned by that commercial fishing.

“There is also forestry and tourism. It is all worth a lot to us.

“This debate is one of those debates that come up ever now and then.”

Ms Saffin said that right across her electorate thousands of cars display the ‘not a drop’ bumper stickers, part of a Daily Examiner campaign against Coalition water policy in 2007.

Following her statement in the House, Ms Saffin said she did not want to alarm people but she wanted to be up front on the first sitting day on this important issue.

“I also want to thank the local people who sent me good information on the issue this morning,” Ms Saffin said.

“The idea of diverting the Clarence River inland won’t stand up to closer public scrutiny.”

Leave river to flow free says local media

From the pen of David Bancroft, The Daily Examiner Editor, 18 October 2010

Click on image to enlarge

What is in Armidale's drinking water?

Authorities must undertake an immediate audit of Armidale city's water supply. I'm not referring to its quantity, but rather its quality.

An Armidale resident has a letter to the editor in today's Daily Examiner that provides abundant evidence that a brain-destroying contaminant is in the drinking water in at least one Armidale home.

Click on letter to enlarge. 

Here's The Daily Examiner editor's response:

  

One of Stephen Heaney's strongest claims is that the fishing industry would benefit if fresh water was prevented from entering the river by being diverted elsewhere. That would be news to the fishing industry. For years the industry has fought tooth and nail to prevent diversion, recognising that natural river flows are essential to the health and therefore the viability of the fishing industry. It recognises that floods and freshes can cause disruption but, like farmers, understand their value to the productive capacity of the valley.

Also from the editor: 

We must fight any proposals to divert the Clarence.

Is anyone out there?

Looks suspiciously like everyone along the Murray-Darling rivers is having too much fun burning books and loudly swearing for the benefit of cameras to actually go online and give an opinion.

Last time I clicked onto the Murray Darling Basin Authority Basin Plan online forum page there were only a handful of comments and this was one example:

tony grose

17-10-2010 1:05 PM

Pipe Line Out of left feild here but would it be viable to build a pipe line to feed water into the basin. We seem to be able to spend millions and millions of dollars on reports and the likes why dont we just bite the bullet and start a massive task like this. The government wants to stimulate the economy emagine how much work this would create. I see that the swiss have just completed the longest tunnel under the elpes and it has taken 14 years for just that part of it, that to me is long term vision. We have a massive water source in the north and north west so maybe we need to try and tap into that and then all Australians will benefit. Tony

MDBA understatement of the year!

Even a bad situation can elicit a laugh or two as Mike Taylor demonstrates with this classic understatement reported by Aunty ABC last week:"But Victorian farmers in Shepparton believe diverting water from the Clarence is still an option. "I think the Murray Darling Basin Commission has done a marvellous job of identifying the needs of the environment. I was just wondering if you could give it a little bit of attention to the needs of irrigators by redirecting some of the big flows of water that run straight into the sea every year like on the Clarence River in NSW and redirect them through a tunnel and through to the darling river and supply a new stream of income water to the whole pool in the environment rather than cutting back all the time. We need more water and there's thousands and thousands of gigalitres of water that just run straight into the sea in this country." Murray Darling Basin Authority Chair Mike Taylor told the Shepparton meeting this week, it's not on the agenda."First of all I'm going to do two things here. I'm going to explain what our brief is which is to deal with the water that's in the Murray Darling Basin so we don't actually get to look at those alternatives. The second bit I am going to say though about taking water from the Clarence, having talked to many people who operate on the Clarence, they're not actually keen on diverting the water across the Great Dividing Range."
Too bluidy right we're not keen!

Water is a precious commodity in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Cambodia's Angkor Wat has almost 2 million visitors a year. The visitors, many of whom stay in 5-star accommodation in the nearby city of Siem Reap, are putting increasing pressure on the scarce water resource.

The plush tourist resorts with fairways of lawns soak up the area's valuable water supply and are in stark contrast to the homes and the lives of the locals of Siem Reap.

Water is a precious commodity in Siem Reap, particularly during the dry season, when tourist numbers are highest. And the population of the city, barely five kilometres from Angkor Wat, has doubled in a little more than a decade to about 200,000.

Water is sucked from groundwater under the city of Siem Reap and as a consequence the stability of Angkor Wat, a centuries-old World Heritage-listed landmark, is under threat.

Local authorities have expressed concerns that thousands of illegal private pumps have been sunk across the city, pulling millions of litres of water from the ground each day.

However, the very survival of the local community is dependent upon a clean and reliable water supply.

Locals living in Siem Reap's hinterland include thousands who are lake dwellers - they live permanently in building along the banks of the lake of Tonle Sap or on the lake itself. For them, clean fresh water is a major problem. Communal pumps, where they are available, are often some distance from the homes.

On a recent visit to Cambodia this writer did not stay in 5-star accommodation.

Credit: SMH

We'll all be rooned!

Even before the Murray Darling Basin Plan was released or widely read last week (in an Australia which currently has a population of 22 million plus and produces food for around 50-70 million people annually) the doomsayers were bellowing across the land, and as usual the Oz meeja were happy to give them column space......

Water cuts would lead to riots: warning Sydney Morning Herald 7th October 2010

Jobs, farms to be hit under river plan Sydney Morning Herald 7th October 2010

'Huge cost' in returning water to Murray The Australian 7th October 2010

Plan will 'save river, kill towns' The Australian 8th October 2010

The water fight The Australian 10th October 2010

Cities will suffer from Murray-Darling cuts‎ ABC Online 10th October 2010

Not to be outdone the rightwing pollies joined in......

Murray Darling Basin plan rewards the inefficient: Nick Xenophon Adelaide Now 8th October 2010

The plan will destroy communities, said the opposition's water resources spokesman, Barnaby Joyce. ''The ultimate goal of a plan such as this seems to be that we wish our nation to be fed by somebody else,'' he said. Sydney Morning Herald 9th October 2010

BOB KATTER, INDEPENDENT MP: We will now be a very, very big net importer of food. We will be one of the very few countries in the world that will be a large net importer of food. The Insiders 10th October 2010

DANNY O'BRIEN FARMERS FEDERATION (to press): The plan that's been released today would be a dagger to the heart of regional Australia. The Insiders 10th October 2010

And of course a perennial climate change sceptic/lobbyist added her tuppence worth......

The Murray Darling Basin Authority released a 'Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan' yesterday which had been touted as an independent scientific report. My impression of the document, however, is that it is an audacious grab for more water based on popular myths....there is enough water in the MDB anyway – no need to take water from anyone. Jennifer Marohasy 9th October 2010

Well this little wood duck's response is straightforward. For generations we've been robbing the environment of water it could ill-afford to lose and (town or country) we've all been complicit in ignoring what farmers and primary industries have been doing in the Murray Darling Basin. Now it's time to pay the piper, suck up the pain and give that water back in big measure.

Waterlines Report June 2010: how much water does Australia use?

Australian Government Waterlines report 30 - June 2010:

This report documents:

• the location of significant intercepting activities that fall outside the current entitlement framework
• the potential rate of expansion of each activity over various time periods
• estimates of water usage of each activity in water management areas used in the Australian Water Resources 2005 report.

The report includes a definition and description of activities that intercept surface water and groundwater and identified the following activities for further analysis:

• overland flows
• farm dams
• stock and domestic bores
• plantations
• peri-urban development

The report shows that the total volume of water unaccounted for as a result of land use activities outside our current water entitlement regimes and planning frameworks equates to almost one quarter of all the entitled water on issue in Australia.

Or to put it another way - a combined volume of at least 5,600 gigalitres of fresh water is intercepted annually across the country. Which is around 10 Sydney Harbours worth of water according to my calculations and, much is apparently being siphoned off outside of current government-endorsed management plans.

Surface and/or groundwater interception activities: initial estimates (7.26MB)

Executive summary (141KB)

The Big Dry continues and basically we're stuft for another year

Eighty percent of New South Wales is in drought once more as The Big Dry threatens to continue its relentless ten-year roll on into another decade of unreliable rainfall across the state and the rest of Australia.
El Nino predictions mean that water security may get quite desperate, for many on the land and in country towns already under pressure, before May 2010 hopefully brings an easing of this weather pattern.
While the big metropolitian areas across Australia may again have to severely ration water consumption.
Our national food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, will fail if this long dry continues.
Here's what NSW looked like at the end of November according to NSW Dept of Primary Industries:



















And here are four Bureau of Meteorology maps to show just how stuft we are as 2009 ends:



Click maps
to enlarge

Sometimes it seems we just can't win when it comes to water......

ABC Rural News on 13th November 2009:

Australia is running out of recycled water, as the nation's drains and sewers dry up.
Managing director of agricultural research consultancy Arris Pty Ltd, Dr Daryl Stevens, says flows into most Australian sewage treatment plants are declining dramatically, especially in drought-affected country towns.
He says water restrictions, more efficient water-using appliances and recycling of water in homes and on farms are all contributing, and Australia's sewage system may struggle to cope with waste.
"The amount and volumes of water have decreased 25 to 50 per cent going in to some sewage treatment plants," he says.
"One of the tricky things is the whole sewage system is designed on a certain volume of water flushing through it to carry all the solids that are mixed up in the water."

River deltas sinking across the globe except in Australia and Antarctica?

A study was published in Nature Geoscience this month on the vulnerability of river deltas and finally there was some guarded good news for Australia in relation to flooding and rising sea levels.

Many of the world's largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta's underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world's deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km². We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas.

Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says according to SBS World News.

Monsanto spinning so hard that its head faces backwards?

On 23 July 2008 the Molokai Dispatch published an editorial titled Monsanto Could be its Own Worst Enemy: Using too much water could force the company to downsize.

This editorial pointed out that:

Last November, General Manager of Monsanto Molokai Ray Foster said that the company was sensitive to the island's water needs and that Monsanto had a water conservation program for times of drought.
Last month however, amidst a 20% water cutbacks mandated by the Molokai Irrigation System (MIS), Monsanto is requesting an increase to its water use. However with water supply levels in the Kualapu`u reservoir over 60 million gallons short of where it was this time last year, many are left wondering where the water will come from?
The MIS was built for the Hawaiian Homesteaders which is why the law reserves two thirds of its water for Hawaiians. As the MIS becomes short on water due to dilapidation and drought, Hawaiian Homesteaders are beginning to feel the pressure.
Non-homestead ag-users like Monsanto currently account for 84% of MIS water consumption. Monsanto itself is using almost twice the amount of water of all 209 homestead users combined.

In a previous article titled Homesteaders Confront MIS:Water scarcity and increasing demands raise concerns the newspaper had reported that:

Water demand continues to increase, while supplies plummet. In one month, the Molokai Irrigation System (MIS) reservoir has dropped 50 million gallons, from 19 feet to 17 feet. Despite the Hawaiian homesteader's two-thirds right to water, roughly 80 percent of MIS supplies are allocated to non-homesteaders.

If the reservoir drops another two feet, a mandatory 20 percent conservation reduction will be issued to all non-homestead users. An advisory board would consult the DOA, which manages the MIS, on how to handle homesteader restrictions.

In an attempt to bypass this cutback, corn-grower Monsanto has proposed to pay for increased MIS pumping from Waikolo Valley. Presently, the DOA is checking into the viability of this proposal by conducting hydrology reports and assessing permit restrictions.

Randolph Teruya, DOA asset manager said Monsanto has increased its producing acreage and water usage in the past year. He also said the DOA will ask all non-homesteaders for a water conservation plan for the upcoming summer, but the agencies hands are tied because conservation enforcement is a county responsibility.

MIS board member James Boswell motioned for the MIS to send a letter to Monsanto to stop watering with a cannon during the day, where most of the water evaporates in the hot sun and wind. The MIS will request watering be done at night for efficiency and conservation.

In the Monsanto & Co. blog Monsanto According To Monsanto on 8 September 2009 when accusing a recent The Guardian U.K. article of selectively quoting the Molokai Dispatch editorial the company blithely did what it allegedly so abhorred in the post Monsanto a Water Bully? Not So.

Nowhere in this Monsanto spin was there any mention of the biotech corporation's desire to increase its water consumption in 2008 and the blog's denial of the existence of a new aquifer is used to deflect from this request to use additional water.

Water which is ultimately sourced from a combination of stream water, spring water and at least one well (sunk into an existing aquifer) within Kalaupapa National Park's Waikolu Valley.

Nor does the company blog mention that it sought to expand land under production during the prolonged drought and asked the Hawaii Dept of Agriculture to service this land with irrigation access.
A request which was denied by the department in July 2008 according to the newspaper, which also pointed to the fact that Monsanto had yet to implement a water conservation plan at that time.

Might I recommend that Monsanto employees acquaint themselves with an excellent little book Straight and Crooked Thinking by RH Thouless, with special attention to the thirty-eight dishonest tricks which are commonly used in argument.

• Financial and Management Audit of the Moloka'i Irrigation System 2008.

Ten reasons why I distrust Malcolm Bligh Turnbull

Cartoon found at The Sydney Morning Herald

1. Malcolm Bligh Turnbull imagines that living in a rented flat when he was young and going to private school on a scholarship means that he understands what it feels like to be disadvantaged; however many little kids growing up in Redfern, Newtown, Millers Point etc., in that era would have given their eye teeth for the level of security and comfort he enjoyed.

2. As Water Minister in the Howard Government he thought it reasonable that water security in the Clarence River catchment should be compromised in order to meet the wasteful water wants of his energy industry, mining and irrigator mates elsewhere.

To further this aim he was prepared to treat Clarence Valley residents like unwashed serfs.

3. Malcolm Turnbull belongs to the oldest gentleman's club in Australia which has a predominately monied WASP membership. Which limits his friendship group in such a way that his ability to understand issues important to the little person is further reduced beyond the fact that he is both a barrister and a conservative politician.

4. As Water Minister in the Howard Government he thought it reasonable that water security in the Clarence River catchment should be compromised in order to meet the wasteful water wants of his energy industry, mining and irrigator mates elsewhere.

To further this aim he was prepared to treat Clarence Valley residents like unwashed serfs.

5. Malcolm Turnbull was part of the Goldman Sachs merchant banking group which helped lay the ground work for those predatory and greedy practices which inevitably led to the Global Financial Crisis. He was also involved in the genisis of the HIH collapse which saw many ordinary Australians lose their savings.

6. As Water Minister in the Howard Government he thought it reasonable that water security in the Clarence River catchment should be compromised in order to meet the wasteful water wants of his energy industry, mining and irrigator mates elsewhere.
To further this aim he was prepared to treat Clarence Valley residents like unwashed serfs.

7. Malcolm Turnbull is such a prima donna that he can take up a popular movement (eg., the republican movement), sink it and blithely walk away. Something he is obviously preparing to do to the federal division of Liberal Party of Australia.

8. As Water Minister in the Howard Government he thought it reasonable that water security in the Clarence River catchment should be compromised in order to meet the wasteful water wants of his energy industry, mining and irrigator mates elsewhere.To further this aim he was prepared to treat Clarence Valley residents like unwashed serfs.

9. Malcolm Turnbull has so much ego and so little intestinal fortitude that he is unable to apologise when discovered trying to hoodwink the Australian electorate, eg., his role in the Ozcar affair.

10. As Water Minister in the Howard Government he thought it reasonable that water security in the Clarence River catchment should be compromised in order to meet the wasteful water wants of his energy industry, mining and irrigator mates elsewhere.
To further this aim he was prepared to treat Clarence Valley residents like unwashed serfs.

Australia's water future explained?

Graphic taken from An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle

Click on image to enlarge

Australian National University E Press has published an online version of An Atlas of the Global Water Cycle.

This atlas seeks to bring together all the IPCC AR4 Climate Models for comparison and states:

We used the above-noted data to compile maps for the globe and for Australia showing precipitation, evaporation and their difference (i.e., runoff) for the historic period (1970-1999) and for the future (2070-2099). Each set of maps is accompanied by tables that summarise the precipitation, evaporation and their difference, by continent, and then by latitude that is further split into land and ocean components. The tables also summarise the differences between simulations of historic (1970-1999) and future (2070-2099) precipitation, evaporation and their difference.

While these maps and graphs are of some academic interest, there is no certainty as to which model is likely to accurately model rainfall patterns for the next 100 years across the Australian continent.

So average laypersons using this atlas are unlikely to be any the wiser when it comes to deciding on the probable level of future water security in the area in which they live, work or run a business.

Water Security Hall of Shame for South Australian would be water raiders

In A Clarence Valley Protest this morning:

South Australian LGA Water Security Hall of Shame

It isn't only Alexandrina Council in South Australia which doesn't seem to understand that it would be environmental vandalism of the worst sort to attempt to cure a desperate lack of water security in one inland catchment area ie., the Murray Darling Basin, by placing a relatively healthy coastal catchment at risk by diverting part of its freshwater flow which sustains both a growing population base, significant primary industry and a large, productive estuary system and wetlands.

There are other local governments which appear to be hitching their star to an impossible dream with clearly no understanding of either geography or hydrology, particularly when it comes to Coorong District Council's idea that damming the headwaters of the Clarence River would actually result in high water volumes comparable to the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

In the Clarence Valley locals are well aware that these headwaters are often so sparse that it is almost possible to leap the flow in a single bound.

What is also most noticeable is that these councils are all singing from the same song sheet.

Here is the beginning of the 2009 Water Security Hall of Shame:

Victor Harbour Council:

16. MOTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Moved: Cr P Chigwidden Seconded: Cr P Lewis

That Council forward a letter to the Secretary of the Murray Darling Association (MDA) Region 6 Committee in support of the following recommendations:

1. That the MDA Conference expresses its dismay at the outcome of the deliberations regarding the final results of the inter-government agreement on the governance of the Basin andcalls upon the Federal Government to intervene and take overthe governance arrangements and to create a truly independent Murray Darling Basin Authority; and

2. That the MDA Conference call for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Studyrelative to water flows through the Murray Darling System.

CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY

Mid Murray Council :

Region 6 - Murray Darling Association:

11120/2 Cr Bormann moved that Council support Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association in putting forward the Notice of Motion to its National Conference calling for the Federal Government to re-examine the question of the Clarence River Diversion Study, relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Seconded Cr Burgess.

CARRIED

Coorong District Council:

Councillor Wright moves;

"That The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

Cr. Peter Wright

Process

The request would proceed via a Notice of Motion to be presented at the 2009 Annual General Meeting of the Murray Darling Association.

Explanation

This proposed diversion of the Clarence River was first discussed in the 1930's. More recently, the Fraser Liberal Government allocated $4 million to fund a feasibility study into the scheme. This was subsequently discontinued by the Hawke Labor Government.

The proposal, if feasible, would involve the construction of a head water dam on the Clarence River, with a 22km tunnel under the Gibralta Ranges in Northern NSW. This tunnel would emerge on the Murray Darling Basin side of the Ranges and feed into the Beardy River, then the McIntyre River and ultimately, into the Basin. The Gibralta Ranges are situated in one of the highest rainfall areas in Australia. The Clarence River is like most east coast rivers in that it is very short, with a high volume discharge into the sea during high volume events.

Benefits of the scheme include:

• The capacity of the dams would have a storage ability approaching that of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• The capacity of head water storage would provide flood control to the Clarence Valley.

• The diversion would only require 24% of the total maximum storage volume to provide similar volumes of water to the Basin as the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

• No pumping of water is required – the entire scheme would be gravity-fed.

• The generation of hydroelectricity is another major benefit.

This Notice of Motion is not a request to build the scheme, but to revisit it in the context of recent climatic events and over-allocations in the Murray Darling Basin.

Cr. Peter Wright

NOTICE OF MOTION

081/09

Moved Cr. Wright Sec. Cr. Bland that The Coorong District Council, through Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association, request that the new Murray Darling Basin Authority ask theFederal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Proposal relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River System.

CARRIED

Council of the Rural City of Murray Bridge:

804 MOTIONS ON NOTICE

804.1 CR BOB ENGLAND – REGION 6 MDA – CLARENCE RIVER DIVERSION STUDY (SF316)

I, Councillor Bob England having complied with the requirements of Regulation 13 of the Local Government (Procedures at Meetings) Regulations 2000, hereby give Notice of the following motion to be submitted at the meeting of the Council of theRural City of Murray Bridge to be held on 14 April, 2009 at 7 pm.

I will move:

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion.

Cr England moved

That Rural City of Murray Bridge note that Region 6 of the Murray Darling Association intends moving a resolution along the following lines at the September AGM of the MDA:

That Region 6 calls on the Murray Darling Association to urge the Federal Government to re-examine the Clarence River Diversion Study relative to water flows through the Murray Darling River system.

Seconded by Cr Schubert and CARRIED