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Communities doing what government refuses

Southern Connected Basin Communities Presentation.

Southern Connected Basin Communities was formed after a group of concerned community groups and members, shared a common goal to once again see a productive and thriving southern basin.

Representing members from the Darling-Baaka in the north, through the Southern Riverina into , and across into , we stand united in our desire to advocate for a future with water security, sustainable business and community and a flourishing environment.

The implementation of the basin plan has done little to deliver the key principles of a connected river system, a healthy environment and thriving communities. In fact, in the southern basin, it has been the complete opposite and has bought nothing but heartache and despair across these three fronts.

Where is the consultation within the Southern Basin?

As a tri-state advocacy group representing a footprint of 10,000 irrigators and their disillusioned communities and damaged environments sadly there is none.

Problems in the basin extend back to the 1990’s when over extraction was identified as a key threat to our future, the 1994 Cap level of extraction was implemented to protect the basin and yet 27 years later we only just licensing FPH in the north lets not go into the unsustainable and above cap volume they are trying to get over the line.

What have we seen?

In February 2021 Southern Connected Basin Communities (SCBC) spent 4 days touring the Lower Darling region and I would love to say we all came home with a renewed faith in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Water Minister Melinda Pavey and NSWDPIE's ability to implement the Murray- Darling Basin Plan.

What we witnessed couldn't have been any further from the truth. If environmental degradation, economic destruction, and communities in despair right along the Darling- Baaka and Murray Rivers were the goal, then management is spot on.

A key principle of the plan is a connected river system and a healthy and sustainable basin, and we stand by our claim the basin plan is not delivering- from where we started at the Choke and some 600kms later at Wilcania, the story was the same.

Communities along the length and breadth are all suffering from the impacts of an out-of-control system and questionable and corrupt leadership.

Despite the rhetoric, floodplain harvesting in the north is draining the Murray-Darling system as their out-of-control greed for water has stopped the Darling-Baaka from flowing AND contrary to the NSW water ministers claim, it is also impacting the southern basin through reduced water reliability and environmental damage by sending too much water down the .

At Wilcania, the Barkandji are meant to feel grateful to have received a 24,000 megalitre pulse of water after unlicensed and unmetered flood plain harvesters in the north have taken 2,000,000 megalitres to produce cotton for corporate giants.

Their river is now dry more often than not and yet a flowing river is an integral part of their culture. Barkandji woman Muriel Riley, was stolen from her home and the river when she was just five years old and now 60 years later, the river is being taken from her again.

Michael Kennedy can’t even teach the traditional way of Barkandji fishing to his children and he is heartbroken that in 2021 Wilcania and its people are still living well below the poverty line and have a life expectancy of 38 for men and 42 for women.

He says it is a well-known fact when there is water in the river crime rates are down and the people of Wilcania are better physically, mentally and spiritually. Barkandji means people of the river and how can they even be that without water?

Just down the road at Menindee we drove past thousands and thousands of dead vines and lost industry on our way to Sunset Strip, a once thriving little community on the banks of Lake Menindee.

Angela Clark has lived there for near on 50 years and she said gone are the thousands of , the yabbies, the and the happiness of the community. She said she will forever remember the stench of dying kangaroos as the lake dried up and they dropped dead around her. At Boundary Bend we took a trip down Pauls Lane - a functioning road five-years ago. Today it is surrounded by corporate almonds and is impassable at one point as a rising water table has forced salinity to the surface and rendered the low-lying area desolate.

We saw the extremes of a river bursting its banks to deliver water to flow out to sea at South Australia to one that had stopped flowing because of greed in the north.

We attended a senate hearing at Broken Hill on dams, water and the impact on community.

Barkandji CEO Derek Hardman used the analogy of a bottle of water to describe how his people are treated – they are the air bubble in the water bottle, sometimes they are at the top, sometime the bottom but they are always the air bubble - they have no water.

We all heard the same repeated message they listen, but they don’t hear. Local knowledge is being ignored and communities are being dictated and bullied by the very people who were voted in to serve and protect them.

The basin plan is failing across so many fronts and I find it laughable that despite implementing a $13 billion dollar plan, there has been no mechanism to sit back and look at what is really happening on the ground.

No place for reflection, are we achieving our goals, what is working what is not?

I am not sure what number submission we are up to, what number senate hearing this is but forgive me for being dubious this will even make a difference.

We spend hours of our time writing submissions, is it to ICAC, NSWDPIE, NRAR, ACCC, MDBA. Nobody listens our fatigue is real and meanwhile the basin plan roles on……… it must be delivered in time and on full.

The basin plan is undeliverable in its current form, the number just don’t add or stack up.

Volunteers spend hours of their time writing submissions, chairing groups and striving for change but sadly in the end it appears to be for nothing – mentally they are cooked and financially they are not far behind.

Our communities are falling apart, we are losing water, our environment, our industry and our jobs. Transparency is a joke.

Community isn’t delivering the message the MDBA want to hear so we are simply ignored, left out from consultation or a box is ticked.

The flaws in the basin plan are obvious starting with the very premise that a connected river system is a key principle and that can’t even be achieved when northern irrigators continue to take such vast volumes of water from the system, they have stopped the Darling River from flowing.

Another fundamental flaw is there is no consideration under the plan to associate the farming footprint with an environment, after all it takes up around 70 per cent of the basin? Imagine what could be achieved environmentally if this was taken into consideration instead of ignored. This type of flaw is short sighted and shows how disassociated basin plan thinking really is and how far removed from reality it really is.

Floodplain harvesting

This is an example of a 10,000 megalitre dam in the Gwydir Valley in NSW. Note it is has a significant volume of water and is surrounded by cotton. At this time general security allocation was 15.68% so the question must be asked where did the water to grow this cotton crop and fill this dam actually come from? This picture was taken before heavy rains in March.

SCBC have grave concerns over the implementation of floodplain harvesting licenses of 390GL plus 500 per cent carryover in any given year by July 1. While we welcome the licensing process after 27 years of free take of water in the northern basin by these irrigators, we fail to see how licensing well in excess of the legislated 94 cap level of diversions is even legal. Despite legislated Cap, BDL and the many laws set up to protect over extraction of the basin through the WMA, the National Party continue to push through with $4billion in licensing for their corporate mates in the north. How can a level of this take be endorsed without end of system flow targets to protect the Darling River? Isn’t a connected river system a key principle of Basin Plan delivery?

On average, the darling River contributes around 39 percent of the 1850Gl required annually at SA as legislated by the Murray-Darling Agreement. FPH storages in the north have increased from 575 gigalitres in 1994 to 1395GL in 2020, without a license or a meter and these irrigators are taking so much water out of the system, they have stopped the Darling from flowing. This is not climate change this is corporate greed impacting southern basin community and environment.

No water down the Darling is impacting the southern basin.

- The shortfall of 721,000Ml is taken from the productive irrigation pool of NSW and Vic irrigators – water which would be used to grow food. - 721, 000Ml is enough water to produce 2 billion litres of milk or 10 million tonne of tomatoes, 860,000 tonnes of rice or 2 million kgs of beef. - This also means the Murray has to make up the delivery shortfall and the large volumes of water forced through the system is causing erosion, silting and big old red gums are falling into the river. - The environment of Menindee has been decimated. A important environmental area, a significant and fish breeding site has been sacrificed to deliver water downstream to SA. - Industry including horticulture has been lost from Menindee along with water from the lake system. - People at Wilcania can’t even turn on the tap to boil water for a bottle. - A dog will die if it drinks the foul and polluted water from the Darling. - Evaporation rates of the lake system have been exaggerated to support a government agenda to take water away.

Erosion of the river bank near Cobram photo taken 2021. Food security

During a pandemic Australia came dangerously close to running out of food. People rushed to the supermarkets to fill their homes with food, and yet we ran out of Australian grown rice in November.

Peak production of dairy in our region alone has dropped from a high of 3.2billion litres to 1.8billion while total Australian dairy production has reduced by 30 % over the last decade. The true figure of dairy imports are clouded because NZ owned Fonterra operates in Australia and product they import is not included in some of the data.

The east coast of Australia is importing staple crops like wheat and barley and this should be a huge wake up call for all of Australia.

Food production is being sacrificed as large mining companies buy up productive land and chew it up and spit it out decades letter. The corporate cotton industry is the north has grown exponentially to the detriment of family owned farms and the profits are sent overseas along with the cotton which isn’t even part of Australian manufacturing frame work.

It is predicted Australian food spend will make up 23% of household budgets in a few years time as we rely on more and more imported products and we lose homegrown Australian food production and the wealth it generates for regional communities.

Australia has lost its way under poor governance and the implementation of the MDBP.

Environment

It is with great concern we hear about the degradation of our rivers and yet the basin plan is meant to be supporting a connected river system – our rivers are in crisis.

The Murrumbidgee is being run a bunker and yet there is no demand from irrigators who are busy harvesting rice or seeding paddocks, where is this water going?

What will happen to the Mennidee Lakes? Will they be sinfully drained again to send water to the Lower Lakes again and will the waterbirds and fish be devoid of the breeding and spawning ground yet again. We are talking about an ecologically significant area with more bird species than Kakadu and it has been sacrificed under the plan.

Water at Menindee taken in February before flooding rains.

At Mildura the river is dying- blue green algae and pumps blocking up with weeds, sand bars are covered with a disgusting muddy sludge. What is happening here, this is the basin plan in action and yet we should continue to push this disaster through? I shake my head.

Environmental watering projects are not delivering outcomes in many areas other. In the Koondrook State Forest the same areas are inundated year after year- water can only naturally flow so far which is resulting in over watering in some areas.

The Barmah National Park was flooded five times in three years and it is a mess. We are all for water for the environment however this just add water approach is not the answer – pushing a large volume of water over the same area year after year is killing our bush and contributing to salinity in other areas.

The area on the left is protected from flooding by the road and look at the understory, the right side has been inundated with flood water many, many times. Farming and irrigation can help provide an answer.

This is a picture of a thriving 60 acre wetland on a working farm in the Riverina.

Management has been taken away from perhaps the greatest environmentalists of all, the farmers who rely on a healthy and sustainable environment so they can actually continue to farm and produce food.

This wetland is watered around every three years through an allocation delivered by the Murray- Darling Working Wetlands Group (separate to the MDBA). This water slowly flows over the wetland in a targeted flow which allows the couple to actively manage what they describe as the very important kidneys of their property. They wetland can never be cleared although they can graze the wetland if ever required.

ANU in Canberra regularly survey the wetland which is home is to 60 species of bird, 4 frogs, seasonal plants and numerous and insects.

A carbon assessment program has proven the property is a carbon sink and better than carbon neutral. The Dairy Industry

The Murray Dairy region has gone from producing over 3.1 billion litres of milk to 1.8billion and dairy farmers have left the industry in droves. In the last few years over 90 dairy farms have closed down in the Riverina town of Finley alone – business that once kept the doors of many local shops open from the mechanic to the vet, the hairdresser to the coffee shop.

In the Murray Dairy Region

• 2019-20 - 900 dairy farms generating 1.8 billion litres of milk providing 22% of Australia’s dairy exports by value. • GMID - 80% production in Murray region and 80% of dairy production in the MDB. • Dairy generates close to double the gross value of production by comparison to horticulture in the region • Over $700 million farm gate value of milk with (80%) returned to regional economy last year • Dairy employs more than 8000 people, on-farm, processing sector and broader service industry –these are permanent jobs • Over $650 million invested by the processing sector in the last 8 years in state-of-the-art modernised processing facilities • Similar investment in on-farm infrastructure (dairies, feeding facilities, barns) • Competitive advantages include affordable land, ideal climate and soils for growing feed all year round, consistent supply of milk production • Dairy foundational industry for the region, it has a symbiotic relationship with horticulture, and other industries

Permanent plantings

Despite there being no new water created under the basin plan, development of permanent plantings has been allowed to grow exponentially in the driest country on earth, thousands of kilometres away from water storage as. In the old days of farming in NSW, if someone wanted to grow rice their soil was tested and had to be deemed appropriate before they were granted a maximum sustainable volume they could grow. Today you can whack an almond plantation in the ground anywhere you want without the thought of the perils of water delivery.

• Entitlements have been allowed in arid, sandy soil regions, further and further away from the main upstream storages- for example from Eildon Weir to Mildura-in excess of 1,000km river miles, where it takes 3ML released at Eildon to deliver 1ML to Mildura, thus increasing conveyance and evaporation losses in an era of higher temperatures and greatly reduced basin inflows due to climate change.

In fact volumes are so high, the almond industry itself has called for a moratorium on plantings that has been ignored by NSW and SA. Shire have no control over plantings either – it is a disastrous free for all.

Citrus industry plantings have also increased by 20 per cent and that industry is also starting to question where is that water going to come from to water these in the future, what a mess.

Almond plantings in the background at Boundary Bend, salinity at the front. South Australia

I recently spoke with a South Australian mixed farmer who is diversifying her business away from irrigated agriculture and into a dryland operation. The high cost of temporary water is killing their business and they can no longer afford the risk.

During the millennium drought the business made the tough decision to sell their permanent allocation, the cost of paying annual fees on top of receiving no water to irrigate their vegetable crops forced their business hand- they had to sell 660 Ml of permanent water or lose their farm.

“We had eaten into our capital and from an economic point of view we had no choice, we had only just purchased our farm and didn’t have generations of equity to back us up.”

Seven years later they have been able to get back to their previous level of vegetable production and instead are focusing on the ‘less risky option’ of dryland canola and cereals across a larger footprint, including share farming next door.

“Our confidence moving forward with the ability to irrigate is wavering when prices can hit $800- we nearly had to walk off the land last time.

“There would be plenty of water to go around if it wasn’t mismanaged.

Many farmers were fed the line about the supposed affordability of temporary water, sell your permanent water, and just use the temp market great idea in theory disastrous.

She questions South Australian water policy and market manipulation.

“Corporates have bigger pockets then we ever will, and the government are implementing rules based on agenda full of misinformation; any farmer just has to look at the river to see the level of water they are pushing through is simply unsustainable.

If the large volumes of water sent to South Australia cannot support a once successful agricultural family-owned business, we really do need to question where this water is going and what is it ultimately being used for?

I will leave the issue of the Coroong and the lower Lakes to those who are smarter than me but I understand science is conflicted, the barrages are a problem and there is a lot of water keeping a estuarine system fresh so people can swan about on the yachts. There is an enormous problem with evaporation and wasted water and at the end of the day rising sea levels are going to wipe out the Coorong anyway. This needs urgent attention.

SOLUTIONS??

Of course, there are, are they listened to of course they are not.

Everything above points to a fundamental problem - the basin plan is flawed and based on delivering outcomes not physically possible and until someone actually has the guts to stand up and point this out, we will continue to go around and around in circles chasing our tails.

Laws implemented to protect us are ignored. In zone 10 CEWH owns around 400,000ML of water which is meant to stay within the zone 10 footprint, does this happen? Of course not. Instead it is manipulated through the choke and sent downstream to keep SA estuarine lakes fresh or support an out-of-control corporate almond industry.

Where is the connected river system?

Where are our thriving industry and communities?

Once water became a tradable commodity Australia was doomed. Investors, overseas superannuation companies, foreign owned corporates it’s a disaster. There is no transparency around water trading and the market is manipulated for financial gain.

I will leave you with the words of Barkandji man Michael Kennedy from February 2021; it makes me sick to my stomach my people are living below the poverty line because of greed for water in the north - my beloved river is dying; my people are dying, and this is simply nothing short of genocide.

Australia needs to wake up, get serious and think about our future. We need better management, acknowledgment of our mistakes and a plan for a future, not a rigid and inflexible plan based solely on a bunch of unachievable numbers.

I thank you for reading