Dam water release leaves farmers high and dry — and politicians with a headache
The release of water down the Lachlan River to save populations of fish and shellfish, instead of struggling farmers, is creating a political headache as the drought bites, writes Anna Caldwell.
Opinion
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There is no doubt about the horrors of drought gripping this state.
Imagine, then, the farmer, watching his every drop for fear of what the future holds, looking up from his work to see 22 billion litres of water gushing by in the suddenly rising river near his property.
These things get your attention when you spend your days trying to conserve that liquid gold H20.
And so, when the water strangely came flooding down the Lachlan River past the drought-ravaged town of Cowra this month, it was noticed.
Federal environmental bureaucrats had carefully calculated that this water would save lives when they asked for the plug to be pulled on the slowly emptying Wyangala Dam last month.
But the lives in question when this water was released were not those of the farmer and his children.
Their target was the environmental river system and its endangered fish.
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You may not have known, what with all the bad news around drought — but this October was payday for the freshwater shrimp, catfish, silver perch and olive perchlet in the Lachlan River.
And, better yet, a Department of Environment spokeswoman told me yesterday that the water will give “an 18-month to three-year lifeline to those species that rely on pools and channels in the Lachlan River”.
That’s quite stunning when farmers in NSW are committing suicide and battling severe mental health issues because their own outlook is so grim.
Because while those little sea creatures are frolicking in the resuscitated river and swamp city, the farmers living along the banks have no idea when the next rain will come.
The bureau certainly isn’t predicting any, which does raise the spectre of how long the water flushed down the river for those fish will last anyway over the hot summer.
Farmers are breaking their backs trying to save water because the truth is their supplies in Wyangala Dam are running low and will only get lower.
When the Commonwealth Environment Water Holder released this massive “spring pulse”, as it’s called in the business, the statutory authority was acting within its rights — but it didn’t have to make the release.
Environmental science might fully support this massive water release, but the politics of a government agency flushing water into a swamp is a very different story.
At a time of crisis, a massive environmental water release from a dwindling dam won’t stand the old political pub test.
Both levels of government are deeply concerned that the drought will bite them at the polls — not just in the regional vote but in the city as well.
There is evidence the drought is gaining traction with city voters and it’s only going to gain further as more water restrictions loom.
Water Minister Melinda Pavey blew the whistle on the scale of the water released for the environment, saying she was stunned such a massive outflow could be considered when the bureau of meteorology is expecting no rain in the foreseeable future. She called the CEWH reckless in its decision making.
NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro also sniffed the political wind on this crisis.
“It seems that we put flora and fauna in front of people,” he said yesterday.
“The threatened species I worry about is actually regional and rural people, and the priority has now got to be these people and communities”.
He went on to say he was willing to tear up the Murray Darling basin plan if need be.
Federal Minister Sussan Ley also moved to address the problem, saying she was “very happy to sit down with everybody including the people of the Lachlan and talk about how we may change the triggers for releases in the future”.
Water is such a highly contested commodity.
Everyone has a view that their access is more crucial than someone else’s.
I spoke this week to an official in the Commonwealth Environment Water Holder who was key in the decision to release the water down the Lachlan when they did. He spoke genuinely of his concern for the river system, and how he believed that keeping it alive and thriving was crucial to building drought resiliency.
The CEWH exists to irrigate the river systems and believes in the importance of that role.
The agency gets a huge water allocation and can flush it down the river when they want.
Politicians will need to step in and change the rules if we want our water to be used differently.
NSW has already taken steps in this direction.
Earlier this year, they put a 43 per cent embargo on carry-over water holdings. This meant that a much smaller amount of water can be accessed and flushed through rivers by the CEWH.
Already yesterday there seemed to be a game of state and federal finger pointing over who knew what when about the shocking 22 gigalitre release of water.
After Pavey’s spray at the CEWH, the commonwealth pointed out that both levels of government work together on a “combined environmental water program” where the releases are jointly managed.
“Since the beginning of the water year approximately one third of the environmental water delivered in the Lachlan River system has been NSW water and two thirds has been Commonwealth,” a spokesman from the CEWH said.
But the truth is the last thing people crippled by drought care about is a state versus federal blame game.
They will be questioning whether the rules on environmental flows need to be changed.
Should they be further restricted?
Politicians whose main constituency are bush voters are going to say yes every time.
Environmentalists will have a different answer and they will find political capital in attacking the Nationals over historic water management.
But when the land is running dry and families are skipping showers and farmers are living on their bare bones, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who puts exotic fish first.