SA response on environmental flows still as clear as mud

ANALYSIS: REPEATED investigations, audits and research reports have shown the South Australian Government is misusing $3.2 billion of environmental water recovered from southern NSW and Victoria, writes PETER HUNT.

ANALYSIS: REPEATED investigations, audits and research reports have shown the South Australian Government is misusing the $3.2 billion of environmental water, recovered from southern NSW and Victorian irrigation communities.

In late 2017 an Ernst and Young audit found the SA Government had not reported back to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder over the past two to three years on how it had managed “water transferred to SA to (meet) specific environmental actions”.

The report also found that despite the SA Government’s constant criticism of the NSW Government’s water management, “the risk of not achieving the CEWH’s obligations appears highest in South Australia”.

Peter Hunt.

The audit found:

LACK of transparency over South Australia’s decision-making framework in relation to environmental water release versus consumptive use, and ability to agree on water delivery priorities; and

INADEQUATE reporting by SA on individual watering actions using Commonwealth environmental water.

Previous reports into SA River operations have also found the SA Government puts Lower Lakes’ recreational use above environmental flows to the Coorong and Murray Mouth.

In 2014-15 the independent Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre found: “The current (SA) management regime appears to prioritise high lake water levels over maintenance of flows to the Coorong and Murray Mouth”.

Again in 2015-16 the Research Centre warned the SA Government appeared to be substituting water it would have normally released through the barrages with environmental water delivered across the border by the CEWH.

The Centre found: “At the River Murray barrages, Commonwealth environmental water contributed 100 per cent of the total streamflow volume” suggesting “the possibility that Commonwealth environmental water is substituting previously provided environmental water rather than augmenting it”.

SA REGATTA RIDES ON ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS

In 2017 the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists examined the relationship between flows into the Coorong and the water in the Lower Lakes, stating: “Barrage flows over spring 2016 were low even though lake levels were above full supply level”.

“With the limited environmental water available, retaining high water levels in the Lower Lakes at the expense of barrage flows compromises the connection of the river to the sea, and may put at risk the Australian Government’s international obligations to protect the Coorong under the Ramsar Convention.”

OPINION: SA MISUSING MURRAY RIVER’S ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS

Even the MDBA’s latest Basin Water priorities report states: “More than 600GL of additional environmental water has reached the Lower Lakes every year since 2014—15, helping to maintain lake levels.

“However, the Coorong and Murray Mouth ecosystem remains in relatively poor condition.”