OUR SAY: It's only logical, our water must stay

Calls to redirect Clarence River water inland is another example of emotion trumping logic

KEEP IT HOME: It is only logical to keep water in the Clarence River writes Tim Howard. Picture: Margie Jefferies

CALLS to redirect Clarence River water inland to save drought-stricken farmers is another example of emotion trumping logic.

Plans to divert coastal river water inland have been around at least since 1938, when Dr John Bradfield came up with a scheme to drought-proof western Queensland and South Australia by sending the waters of the Tully, Herbert and Burdekin rivers inland.

The benefits were enormous. Massive areas in Queensland could be farmed under irrigation, it could produce massive amounts of hydro-electricity and cut erosion problems in central Queensland.

It would create beneficial change in central Australia as the cooling effects of a permanently filled Lake Eyre brought higher rainfall and vegetation growth.

Except none of this would happen because just about everything in the planning was wrong.

Bradfield's estimate of the amount of water needed was more twice what the rivers could supply, the evaporation rate was likely to exceed water flows.

Most damning was the damage the loss of the water would cause to the existing eco-systems, including the Great Barrier Reef.

The mighty Clarence produces nothing like the flows of those tropical northern rivers. It shows there are many simple answers to complex problems and they're invariably wrong.

Originally published as OUR SAY: It's only logical, our water must stay