Submission to the Select Committee Inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan September 2015 Prepared by Stuart Simms and Raelene Peel On behalf of the Kerang Lakes Land and Water Action Group Kerang Lakes Land and Water Action Group Secretary In making this submission to the Senate Select Committee inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan on behalf of the Kerang Lakes Land and Water Action Group (KLL&WAG) we wish to address • the social, economic and environmental effects on our community of an existing Murray- Darling Basin Authority Salt Interception Scheme • the challenges of sustainable production in the Murray Darling Basin • the management of the Lower Lakes and Coorong • environmental watering of Red Gum Forests 1. Social, economic and environmental effects of an existing Murray-Darling Basin Authority Salt Interception Scheme To demonstrate we provide the following case study on the Barr Creek Drainage Scheme that came into operation in 1968 and its ongoing effects on the social, economic and environmental sustainability of our community. Barr Creek Drainage Scheme Case Study: The Tutchewop Lakes, comprising Lakes Tutchewop, Little, Kelly and William are located in north- western Victoria. Lake Tutchewop, the largest of the lakes is approximately 30 km’s north of Kerang, whilst Lake Kelly is 1 km west of the Loddon River, a tributary of the Murray River. Under natural conditions Lake Tutchewop was an intermittent freshwater lake, supplied by the Avoca and Loddon River systems via the network of lakes and wetlands referred to as the Kerang Lakes. In 1923 Lake Tutchewop was incorporated into the Torrumbarry Irrigation System, a role it performed until 1935 when it was decommissioned due to water losses. (Simms 2005) Lakes Kelly, Little and William however have always been saline lakes, described by Major Mitchell as “lakes of salt” in 1836, with the first Government Lease for salt harvesting from these lakes issued in 1880, with bagged crystal salt exported from the district via paddle steamers (Simms 2005). Government Leases for salt harvesting remained in force until 1968 resulting in economic loss and un-employment upon their cancellation. The Barr Creek Drainage Scheme, utilizing the Tutchewop Lakes commenced in 1968 with no community consultation, to reduce salinity levels within the Murray River and to maintain the agricultural productivity of the Barr Creek Catchment with the diversion of saline Barr Creek flows from the Loddon River and ultimately the Murray River. Whilst this achieved positive outcomes for the Murray River and the Barr Creek Catchment, the community and environment of the Tutchewop Lakes suffered and continues to endure, the ramifications of this management decision, primarily the accumulation of salinity and associated impacts including loss of vegetation, lowering of water quality in adjacent wetlands, loss of productivity, economic losses, reduced employment and population loss. Planned expansion of the scheme to include the Mineral Reserves Basin Scheme created widespread community action and ultimately Supreme Court proceedings, with complete disregard for valuable local knowledge or conflicting scientific data. Many properties were purchased as part of the scheme, resulting in social division and population loss with financial resources diverted from production to legal fees. The scheme was ultimately abandoned in 1982 with the acquired land remaining in government hands until recently. Despite the unsustainable and degrading processes occurring within the Tutchewop Lakes they were listed under the Ramsar convention as part of the wider Kerang Lakes Ramsar Site in 1982. The possibility of wetlands having been mistakenly listed within the Kerang Lakes Ramsar Site was reported as early as 1989 (Lugg et. al. 1989) yet the need to maintain Ramsar values is constantly used as a reason for action without any review of the initial listing. The hyper-charging of saline water levels in the Tutchewop Lakes corresponded with increases in salinity of 5000EC in the irrigation supply storage of Lake Charm, with resultant production losses. Furthermore local producers were un-able to access Salinity Management Plan funding for Whole Farm Planning, Water Re-use Systems and Community Surface Drains due to the operation of the Tutchewop Lakes, curtailing economic growth of the region. The Kerang Swan Hill Future Land Use Project (2002 – 2004) and the included Tutchewop Lakes Serial Flushing Scheme continued to largely ignore local knowledge and dissenting science whilst advocating action to extend salinity disposal in our region and maintaining the impermeability of the system. With growing community concern the Gannawarra Shire Council stipulated that Murray Goulburn Water (GMW) and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority obtain a planning permit before the Serial Flushing Scheme proceed and as a result of community action a review of “the assumptions and assessment techniques of any hydrogeological assessments undertaken in developing the future management options for the Tutchewop disposal basins” (NT, 9/8/05 p.1 in Peel, R. 2005) occurred. As the community long believed, the review and resultant report, publicly released in March 2007, found that evidence existed of leakage of salt from Lake Tutchewop and that the assumption of increasing salinity and salt loads within Lake Tutchewop could not be substantiated (Middlemis & Wallia 2006 in Peel, R. 2007) as the salt balance in the lakes did not match the tonnages of salt diverted. Farmers who believed their land was adversely affected by salinity escaping from the Tutchewop Lakes had their claim for compensation rejected this year because under statute of limitations damage prior to May 2002 was statute barred (Linton, D. 2015). As the above case study demonstrates our community has already borne a heavy social, economic and environmental price by providing salt interception services for downstream Murray River communities. As the excerpt below from the Basin Plan states existing works and measures will continue, but at what cost to our community? Chapter 9—Water quality and salinity management plan Part 3—Water quality objectives for Basin water resources 9.09 Salt export objective (2) The salt export objective is to ensure adequate flushing of salt from the River Murray System into the Southern Ocean. Note: A discharge of an average of 2 million tonnes of salt each water accounting period has been assessed as being adequate for the purposes of subsection (2). This figure has been calculated on the basis of a long-term modelled estimate approach that takes into account cyclical climate influences on flows, as well as existing works and measures such as salt interception schemes that avoid substantial quantities of salt entering the River Murray System, and which are complementary to flushing salt from the River Murray System. Our concern for the future is that given the repeated failures of authorities to give credence to local knowledge and even in the face of dissenting science to deviate from established priorities, that any “adaptive management” as defined by the Water Act 2007 will be too slow and too late. 2. The challenges of sustainable production in the Murray Darling Basin It must be said from the outset that farmers are generally not environmental vandals but that in the process of making an honest living, intend to leave their farm in as good or better environmental condition as when they took over. With this intent then, we may well ask who established that the Murray was “dying”. We must keep in mind that the great flood of 1956 saw 43,000,000 Ml of fresh water flushed to the sea. We must also consider that in its present state the world is heading for inevitable over-population and so, starvation, therefore we must strike a balance between a pristine environment and food production. There are those who would argue that food production is in fact increasing at a faster rate than population growth but, if so, at what cost? The 30 years has seen great improvement in water use efficiency, land layout, water reuse, genetically modified plant varieties and the judicious use of sprays and fertilisers, but, unfortunately, most of these innovations are petroleum reliant and so the sustainability must be considered. Are we farming our land sustainably or mining it? Many of us believe we will soon arrive at a point where the ever-increasing cost of continually stimulating our land to greater production will outweigh the returns in that production. We can also quite accurately predict the returns on the use of a Mega litre of water with irrigation – we know that we can produce at least one tonne of Lucerne with a Ml and that through a Grape Vine or Fruit tree that Ml will return upwards of $2,000 gross yet there are those who would prefer to see 1.5 Million Ml or even more flushed down the river to the sea as environmental flows when no-one yet has established a formula to put a dollar value to the environment on those mega litres. To further exasperate the economics, as water leaves a given area, those remaining must pay a higher rate to continue to maintain a lesser utilised system. It is argued that the Plan is not “taking water off the Irrigator” but we are seeing prices such that the offer of relinquishing water is hard to refuse. 3. Management of the Lower Lakes and Coorong We must comment on the use of this water to maintain a fresh environment in Lake Alexandrina. We consider it common knowledge that this lake, historically, fluctuated between fresh water in times of high river flows to saline in times of low or no flow. To attempt to maintain it fresh now at all times sees the evaporation of some 750,000 Ml annually of good irrigation water that would generate millions of dollars to the national economy. It must also be said that no matter how much fresh water is flushed down the river it will have no effect on Lake Albert or the Coorong as these water- ways are simply “appendices” to the system and originally gained their flushing flows of some 450,000 Ml of water from the east that has now been artificially diverted direct to the sea.