Sunday 17 August 2008

Water diversion as an act of terrorism?

With the Murray Darling Basin news growing gloomier by the day, South Australian Premier Mike Rann has called Queensland Government-approved private water diversion and storage on the Paroo River treacherous and "environmental terrorism".

A recent Murray-Darling Basin Commission audit said that of 23 rivers tested, only the Paroo was in good health.

Let us hope that Mr. Rann remembers the terms he employed if there is another push, from local government or individuals in his state, to dam and divert fresh water from the NSW North Coast Clarence River catchment.

Communities in the Clarence Valley do feel sympathy for those dependent on the Murray Darling river system, but the writing is now on the wall for many with the need for
further water buybacks, illegal water extraction still rampant, water-greedy crops underproducing, a Federal Government delaying the inevitable need to turn-off water to irrigators by deciding to replicate the CSIRO water audit, and therefore wrecking the economy, health and environmental flows of the Clarence River or its tributaries would not halt the train wreck occurring in the Murray Darling Basin.

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