DRIED-UP RIVER SYSTEM THREATENS SOUTH AUSTRALIAN

UNCLAS CANBERRA 000625

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE PLEASE PASS INTERIOR, EPA; STATE FOR EAP, OES

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: SENV AS
SUBJECT: DRIED-UP RIVER SYSTEM THREATENS SOUTH AUSTRALIAN
WETLANDS


1. (SBU) Summary: A report presented to the Murray-Darling
Ministerial Committee, which was leaked to the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation on June 18, says that the
critically-stressed river system (the largest in
Australia) has only months to go before salinity and
acidification of the lower reaches alters, perhaps
permanently, some of Australia's most significant wetlands.
The report was commissioned by the Committee following
concerns raised by South Australia (SA) Minister for Water
Security Karlene Maywald in March, and may have been leaked
to put pressure on the Committee to act after they put off
consideration of the report until November. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Econoff met June 18 with South Australia (SA)
Department of Water and Natural Resources officials in
Adelaide. In casual conversation, the report came up.
According to Paul Harvey, Program Leader for the Murray
Darling Initiative, the report had been the result of
SA Water Minister Maywald,s March request to the inter-
state Murray-Darling Ministerial Committee (MMDC) to take
action to address critically low levels of water flowing
into the Coorong system of lagoons and wetlands and Lakes
Alexandrina and Albert at the mouth of the Murray River.
With no flows into the sea in over three years, Harvey
said, salinity and acidification of soils is a s
ignificant threat. The Committee had asked for a threat
assessment by SA scientists, which was presented in May.
This report says that areas of the lower Murray-Darling
basin have only months left without major environmental
flows before suffering irreversible damage - i.e.,
before the problem would be considered by the MMDC at
its next meeting in November. This reportedly infuriated
researchers who worked on the report and may have been
behind the leak. University of Adelaide professor David
Patton argued that a discussion in November of this
question will not be about costs of adding environmental
flows but about physical engineering to "remediate" the
damage done.


3. (SBU) According to Harvey, the scale of the drought and
over-allocation of scarce water in the river system were
"beyond anything we had planned for." In the last 50 years,
the river flows from New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria
into SA in the Murray-Darling have never dipped below 1800
gigaliters. This year, flows will likely end up no more
than 1050 gigaliters. Murray-Darling flows are so low that
irrigators are now paying more than A$1200 per megaliter,
which makes almost any crop uneconomical. This amount also
basically stops river flows, which has led to a return of
the salinity and acidification problems that first arose in
the 1950s and were the initial reasonfor inter-state
environmental cooperation in the basin. Harvey said that
there had been no flow from the river into the sea in three
years. As a result, Lake Albert is now below sea level, and
SA is spending A$6 million a year to pump water from Lake
Alexandrina to Lake Albert to try and prevent a significant
increase in salinity. Two of the wetlands of the Coorong
are also identified as protected internationally under the
RAMSAR wetlands convention, but to date the Federal
Government has declined to use its foreign affairs powers
under environmental laws to force NSW and Victoria to take
away from water users in their states and put it back into
the system.


4. (SBU) Responding to the storm of criticism over the
decision to put off consideration of the crisis until
November, Federal Minister for Water Penny Wong, said
QNovember, Federal Minister for Water Penny Wong, said
June 18 she was waiting for "urgent advice" from Federal
Departments about possible actions. A request to contacts
at the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the
Arts for further details went unanswered.

MCCALLUM