The constraints strategy focus is to achieve ‘enhanced environmental outcomes’, as stipulated in Section 86AA of the Water Act, such as the operational target of 80,000 Ml/day at the South Australian border.
The report, however, now states this flow is neither reasonable nor realistic to pursue.
Consequently, attempting to keep the Murray Mouth open 95 per cent of the time without dredging is also unrealistic, but the report failed to make any mention of this impossible ‘enhanced environmental outcome’ target.
The Federal Government enshrined their aspirational ideals in legislation, then rushed in to extract large volumes of water from the productive consumptive pool by whatever means possible, before they had any idea whether that water could in actual fact be delivered.
They put the cart before the horse so to speak.
And still, even allowing a further time-frame of 10 years, there are many unknowns and no certainty that proposed target flows can be achieved or that the environmental benefits when quantified are actually greater than resultant environmental damage and ongoing degradation to private property.
Yet the Federal Government is still intent on acquiring the 450 Gl and enforcing the constraints strategy to attempt to deliver that additional water.
Communities and landowners with long-lived knowledge and experience along the Goulburn and its floodplains have for more than 13 years told the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and basin states’ bureaucrats that the initial legislated flow objectives could not be achieved without massive impacts.
Proposed overbank flooding of private properties in the Upper Goulburn seven years out of every 10 years simply cannot be mitigated by a one-off, up-front payment which is the current proposition.
The MDBA by acknowledging the need for mitigation knows that there will be significant cost to the 4000 affected landowners.
Since the inception of the MDBA’S idealistic Constraints Management Strategy in 2013 there has been no overall integrated basin policy, and no project (except in SA) has formally commenced negotiations with impacted landholders, yet ‘relaxation’ of constraints, we have been constantly told, must have basin-wide and system-scale benefits.
Landowners in the upper Goulburn River catchment have so far seen only large-scale degradation to the banks and beds of their river.
As the report states, river operators do not have “the authority, capacity or confidence to target, coordinate, evaluate and reconfigure flows as needed”, and the fact that each basin state has its own regulations and legislation increases the difficulty of an integrated plan.
Add to this the increasing difficulty in forecasting unpredictable weather events, the lack of sub-daily monitoring in upstream tributaries that are flashy and fast reacting, the fact that breakout points on rivers change meaning overbank flooding areas also change, therefore easements would need to shift accordingly.
The MDBA totally underestimated the complexity of the constraints projects strategy.
The Constraints Roadmap devised by the MDBA is the fourth attempt at getting a Goulburn Constraints Project across the line as feasible.
We are looking at another 10 years of money being wasted on the unachievable guided by a roadmap to nowhere.
Jan Beer, Yea
Report card gives tick to fish
Anyone reading Mark Lawlor’s letter in Country News (January 7) might think that native fish populations in the Goulburn Broken catchment are in trouble and that locally we have made little progress in the recovery of fish populations and current approaches to fish recovery are not working.
In fact, the recent Native Fish Report Card (NFRC) Goulburn Broken Region 2023, published by the Arthur Rylah Institute, notes that the NFRC program began in 2017, with a focus on targeting the monitoring of population dynamics of key iconic fish species that have high recreational and/or conservation values, in large rivers across Victoria.
In the Goulburn River, the target species are Murray cod, golden perch, silver perch and trout cod.
The 2023 report card states:
“Both silver perch and trout cod were historically abundant in the lower and mid-Goulburn River, with silver perch historically abundant up to the Nagambie area and trout cod present upstream of the Lake Eildon confluence.
“These species have experienced dramatic declines across their range reflected in their classification as threatened species nationally under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1998.
“The status of both species has now improved, with trout cod now having a self-sustaining population downstream of Lake Nagambie and silver perch present, although in lower densities.
“Overall, the Goulburn River appears to be maintaining healthy populations of golden perch, Murray cod and trout cod.
“Many rehabilitation actions have occurred, and are under way, to improve the health of the Goulburn River and its fish community.
“These include revegetation, weed control and fencing of riparian areas, reintroduction of in-stream woody habitat, allocations of water for the environment, fish stockings and pest control as well as removal of barriers to fish movement.”
This isn't to say that native fish populations in the Goulburn river are fantastic, but they certainly seem to be on the improve. Improvement activities (the current approaches) will need to continue for many years.
Readers should have a look at the report card (easily found via Google) and make up their own minds.
Pat Feehan, Shepparton
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