By Ron Pike, Murray Darling Basin expert
In the evocative words of Martin Luther King junior. “I have a dream.” It is a dream I have had for several decades. It is a dream that could so easily be real. It is a dream that could dramatically lift Australia’s productivity. It is a dream that could make Australia a more secure country. But government inaction makes it a continuing mirage.
My dream is that on this the driest inhabited continent on earth, we would build dams on most of our rivers. These dams would have multiple purposes. They would store excess water in times of flood flow. Reduce flood damage, release water in dry times for irrigated agriculture and produce low-cost hydropower. Mankind has yet to find a better way of doing this than building dams, but in Australia we have not built a dam for over forty years. As a result, as we now appear to be entering an overdue drought and our major dams are all around 50% of capacity. We will run out of water by the end of summer if there are not greatly increased inflows.
It is now over forty years since we built our last dam, which was Wivenhoe Dam on the Brisbane River. During the intervening period our population has grown by over twelve million people. This is another reason we are headed for water shortages and likely very severe shortages. The time for dam building is NOW. Starting with not one but several. Most of the preliminary work on siting and size has been completed for years and construction could start soon. Preferably, today.
If it does not and we continue into a drought cycle, then much of southern Australia will be drastically short of water this summer. This will initially affect annual crop irrigators like rice, corn and cotton growers. It would quickly lead to rationing of water to other users like grape and fruit growers. The results would be large scale employment lay-offs in regional centres.
This in unison with rising interest rates will plunge Australia into a prolonged recession.
A recession that most present-day politicians could not manage. The “lucky country” would become the doomed country. Previously thriving communities would become welfare recipient slums. With our major dams in the south now sitting on an average of 53% and the irrigation season due to start in the next month and now likely snow-melt being very low, it is not surprising that “general security” allocations are presently only 22%. Unless there is a soon to be announced large increase in this figure, there will be widespread lay offs as the production of rice, corn, cotton and vegetable crops drop dramatically.
I do not believe that either the Federal Government under their unconstitutional Murray Darling Basin Plan, or the NSW State Government have any plans to prevent this potential disaster.
How do we better manage the water resources we have?
We begin by recognising that Commonwealth intervention in water management was always unconstitutional, unnecessary and counter-productive. The Federal Water Authority should be wound up and water entitlements held by the environmental water holder, should be sold back to end users in the valley from which they were purchased.
We then set about constructing the dams we should have been building over the last forty years. In no specific order these dams are now urgently needed.
The Welcome Reef dam on the Shoalhaven River, to secure Sydney’s water supply.
A dam and a weir on the Mitchel River to guarantee Melbourne’s water supply.
The Chowilla Dam on the Murray to harness this vast resource.
Implement the Bradfield Scheme on the Burdekin River in Queensland.
A dam on the Namoi River and several weirs on the Darling River.
Many more are needed and planning and assessment should start now.
The Federal Government should stop chasing the “Rainbows” of climate change, AI and implement real, needed policy that will provide future generations with reliable and cheap power and water. They are and always have been the catalysts of production.
The people will do the rest, Australia will prosper and my dream will come true.