It isn't often that I get deep......... but it is with great interest, that I'm reading the editorial regarding the Coorong wetlands and the Goolwa lakes becoming lost to the salt water influx due to lack of freshwater flow in the Murray. Everyday we read about or hear about "Scientists" (or hysterical greenies, grape growers and sundry people with a vested interest in making money from the fresh water) stating that the area will be lost forever (nearly) if something is not done about it. (Mostly demands are made to the government and expecting either taxpayers money or another imposed levy (same thing either way) to be used.

The disappearing birdlife could in part be due to the increase in foxes numbers since the banning of fox fur coats (tongue in cheek). Or else like everything else they have simply relocated to several areas. Small numbers in many locations would not be too easy to spot.

My question is: What used to happen to these wetlands and lakes in the days of severe droughts before the construction of the Goolwa barrages and all the river locks?? Salt water must have flowed back up the river during those times and the areas seem to have recovered very well in a reasonable short space of time.

There are photos in Euchuca (You would have seen these Basil.........may even have some...........inherited naturaly..........not taken personally) from the early 1900's showing people sitting in the bottom of the Murray having picnics. It must have been dry for a couple of years to dry out enough for that.

When the rain comes again................the area recovers. Nature at work!!

Is the current interest all financial??   I do wonder!!

Almost as bad as the hysteria on climate change!!  Talk about a money making venture!!

Thanks for the lend of the soapbox Dave!!  I have cleaned all the dummy spit off it and returned it to your corner.

Hi Disco........I have seen pics of Lake Alexandrina...in the 1960's..with car races held in the middle of it...climate change is a joke.......the water isnt there...due to over using...and now they building walls at Clayton and currency creek..to seal off the lake.......that is slowly getting winter rain to fill....

They say Lake Albert is a dust lake.....I took this pic couple weeks ago at Meningie
all the pumping from Lake Alexandrina.....filled it from where I looked



Dave

Well done Dave............ At least I have someone agree with me. We may be a minority because we don't grow grapes or sail our 60ft yachts in the lake! Jess

you bugger you may have cleaned the spittle off me soapbox but you didn't wipe your boots before you got on, nearly busted my coxic (spelling) slipping on your muddy footprints anyway, yeah I agree that the Murray used to dry up pretty regular and it must have self regulated back then so i cant see why it wouldn't do so now, the coorong has always been super saline and often used to dry up, when I lived in Millicent I used to have a regular run back home to Georgetown past the stinking place, I used to have to wind the windows up and try not to breathe it in that was way before the place used to dry up but as you say, back then we didn't have millions of dollars worth of boats sitting at goolwa or the houseboat industry and we didn't have Mr tree change and all his grapevines whingeing about the lack of water or our citrus industry I actually believe in climate change simply because I am watching it dry up previously green areas, we have had crop failures in areas where crops never used to fail, we endure temperatures in excess of 40 degrees now for weeks on end, we haven't had decent rain in 6 years now, I can remember in my short (but very adorably sweet) lifetime areas of gums that were in excess of 100 years plus old, now they are dead I also pray like hell that I am wrong about climate change this cant be a regular cycle or the trees would not have survived that long in the first place, but what do I know!

found this


Before the Hume and Dartmouth dams were built, the River did run dry during periods of drought.

"Water was never more than two feet six deep while we carted [timber], and for a long time in Autumn 1915 was perfectly dry, the river having stopped running in February or March". '100 Years at Rosevale' by Russell McDonald in 'Picnic in the Murray in Defiance of the Drought' by Marianne C.o.c.k.roft

Dave

-- Edited by Smokeydk on Wednesday 29th of July 2009 02:22:37 PM

Sorry DaveO I didn't do anything about the mud because you are telling me how dry it is so I didn't think there would be any...........................!! This is part of a cycle mate.............a bigger and longer cycle but a cycle none the less. Talk to any archeaologist and he will tell you that the world has had a lot more co2 than we have now at various times. I didn't think they had windows on cars when you were young :) Might see if our library has got that book Smokey. Looks like it may be interesting? Jess

cheeky mongrel, I'll have you know we had canvas blinds in all our sulkies, and they were remote control "hey, wind your blind down" well I hope you're right about it being a "cycle" I just hope it's a unicycle, one that comes around once every 100 years I remember seeing up along various river ports pictures of the stranding of many vessels for long periods, they just had to sit in the mud till the floods came back to release them, that was the main reason for the expansion of the railway as the paddlesteamers could not be relied on to get the wool down to goolwa

Don't know about the Murray, except that its lower than it should be according to the knowalls, however I do remember the Snowy and recall it as a raging torrent through the flats at Orbost, Now cause of the snowy mountain scheme it was diverted to other uses , mainly the Murray and the grape growers, We can fix it by not drinking wine ?????????

Yes Basil does have pictures (negatives even) taken by my Grandfather on the maternal side who was a soldier settler on the Murray at the end of WWI. I can say with complete authority that the Chaffey bros screwed the Murray system. They are the cause of the salination upstream where the water table has risen bringing the salt from the long defunct inland sea that used to be there a long time ago....

Yes the Murray barrages are a stuff up as are the various locks and weirs all built to aid the dying riverboat trade....

I'm not a supporter of the hysterical greenies, cotton growers etc. Anyone ever been to the St George area in Qld and had a look at the dams they use to irrigate the cotton? Some of them are so large you cant see across them. I'd suggest that if we called on the dambusters then maybe some water would reach the sea via the Darling.
being called for dinner will continue later....

I have to be honest Mike and say, I don't know if I really want it fixed at that price. The foreign muck is not worth drinking so you may have to come up with a better solution. Back to the drawing board please!!

Funny thing is Basil that most of the dams etc on those upper rivers were built illegally but no government has the"cajones" to stand up to them because of the big money involved. If you have access to Google Earth have a look at the diamantina rivers and the dams built on there. Be good if you could post some of those pictures to look at Basil. I love looking at the old river photos. Love Echuca and would have enjoyed seeing it in it's heyday as far as the paddle steamers were concerned

That's a good picture Smokey. Where was it taken do you know??



http://jennifermarohasy.com/wiki/The_Murray_River_in_Australia

-- Edited by Disco Duck on Wednesday 29th of July 2009 08:08:07 PM

No Jess...I took it from that site you posted Dave

The floodwaters from Qld and western NSW earlier this year should be heading down and into the Darling by now. Apparently the cotton growers have a thing about building illegal "holding" dams for the irrigation water. Mind you there is a huge demand for water from the Murray/Darling basin. SA depends very heavily on the poor old Murray all the way to Whyalla. Unless everyone saves their rainwater there just isn't any other source of water. Any bore water west of Port Augusta is so saline even the sheep can't drink it. The Adelaide Hills have reasonable underground water, but then they get all the rain as well. The dams depend on the Murray when the levels drop to worrying levels. Even the Torrens gets topped up from the Murray. With all the development everywhere I think the powers-that-wannabee forgot to provide infrastructure for future water and electricity supplies. There seems to be a constant demand on natural resources everwhere, all based on self-serving greed. Residential development, cotton and rice growing. The vineyards and orchards don't take as much as those crops. In the early years the Barossa grew vines without irrigation and they produced fine wine. I also think the climate is part of a cycle. We just haven't lived long enough to have experienced some of those cycles. History will tell us about some of them, but what about before settlement? Some of the old tribal fellas can tell their stories about old times. Oops, all this without that soap box. What next? Cheers Chris

So what IS happening ,is it a cycle that all the peoples of Bangladesh nation get flooded along with all the south sea islanders, when the Artic melts away, When I was a school there was a map of the Artic ,(thats at the top of the world in the other hemisphere) and it stretched from russias, land mass to the Canadas land mass, Google it now and it dont cover a twobob bit The Antartic is also getting smaller by the day, How long does one have to call it a cycle ,

My water costs me dearly ,$4.00 for a thousand litres, wonder how that compares with the cities prices , or the grape growers, And we have a large tank for rain ,but it dont last all winter

hi there Mike ..

Just looking at my last water bill = 1.61 per kl  (per thousand litres)
.. thats in the western suburbs of Sydney

Jon 

I tend to think we are in trouble as well, I think the "cycle" will end in humanity not having any more water

Hey Mike I don't know how long the cycles last but it is a known fact that we have had at least 3 ice ages in our history. This is proved by core samples taken from the Ice poles and also earth core samples. The global warming is supposedly caused by the CO2 in the air. There again it is a proven fact that we have had lots more CO2 in the air during previous times. In order to have an ice age you must have a warming period before or after which I guess you could call global warming. If you have a look at old maps you'll also see how the shape of the various continents have changed. All part of the cycles and evolution. We'll never run out of water DaveO. We still have the same amount of water in the world today as when it first began. It has just changed and got saltier, mainly through mis-management as Basil stated. We have to get smarter in our water harvesting and storage...........or drink wine....hehehehe

yep plenty of water left I guess, it just goes elsewhere, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, we had a leaflet drop here during summer to "rest assured we will not go short on water, however your supply cannot be guaranteed next year" we are still under water restrictions here since summer we are a major regional center totally reliant on the Murray and here is Mr or Mrs government man stating that we may not have water next year, dont know what we are going to drink, I will look forward to the ice age, at least we will have water, I have large rain water tanks but the system has changed and it seldom rains here any more so they sit empty since I purchased them all I know is these last seasons have been the hottest and driest that I have ever seen, sea levels have risen, ice caps have melted beyond recognition, polar bears are going hungry because they cant get out on to the ice shelf (too thin) rivers and streams are drying up, floods and droughts and cyclones are harsher than ever, big river reds are dying that have survived for 100's of years, these are undesputed facts something is going on and it aint good, a famous man once said "something evil this way comes" I cant help agreeing with him just hope you climate change doubters are correct, I personaly dont think you are!! but I would love to be proven wrong

They certainly are correct in saying it is a cycle but the lenght of the cycle is so long we will all be long gone So live for the day, tomorrow we will be recycled and wont have a care in the world, whatever its state

Yes I will post some of the pics.... just at this juncture in time I have a lot to do before I can start to actually enjoy myself.......

As an example of the length of the cycle have a look at Lake George near Canberra. In the past it was so full they had a paddle steamer on it and used to have sailing races, then it dried up, then it filled in the 80's to the point where it cut the road and traffic had to be diverted, now its almost as dry as the Murray in summer....
One expert reckons it's a 50 year cycle.... we can but hope.

We in the ACT are doing our bit though, all our sewerage is cleaned up and put into the Murrumbidgee to eventually get into the Murray so those downstream can drink it - just think if you are downstream from us you could be drinking Dad Rudds recycled doo dooos quite unknow to yourself and wondering to yourself "why do I feel like Ive been taken for a ride"

Dad Rudd spends a little amount of time in the A.C.T. compared to his time in Queensland(adds the Darling as well as the Murray.But pity all those overseas countries he visits with his entourage)Nearly as bad as Little jonny and his mob in the preceding twelve years.

"Don't drink yellow snow". Many places are now recycling sewerage and using it to irrigate the thirsty infrastructure in the community like ovals and golf courses. Even Broome recyles and has one of the best greened golf courses. The sports fields are also irrigated with recycled sewarage. Now the experts claim they can purify it to be safe for human consumption. Even if we could irrigate our backyard vege gardens it would be put to good use. When I saw all that water running out to the Indian Ocean with a pinkish brown tinge I used to ponder the waste. Last wet season all the inland floodwater run into Lake Eyre. Good for the pelican population, but no use to man. That's life in nature. In the mean time all we can do is our best to conserve water resources and supplies. Cheers Chris

I wondered why the water here has been so bad lately...............it's you Basil YUKK!! I don't know what you eat but........................ STOP IT!!