Irrigators call for end to blame game over fish deaths in Lower Darling

LOWER Darling irrigators have called for an end to the blame game over the past week’s fish kill, which is at risk of extending even further under the current heatwave.

Images from of up to a million native fish dead in the Lower Darling. Picture: Office of Jeremy Buckingham MLC

LOWER Darling irrigators have called for an end to the blame game over the past week’s fish kill, which is at risk of extending even further under the current heatwave.

Politicians, economists, policy makers and environmentalists have waded in to apportion blame over the death of up to a million native fish in the Lower Darling, pointing to flaws in the Murray Darling Basin Plan, failings of the NSW Government, drought and over-extraction by cotton growers.

“But there’s no one cause and no one person to blame,” Lower Darling irrigators Alan Whyte said.

“It’s not just the drought or a few feral cotton growers who are to blame. It’s just that the (Lower Darling) river has been ignored.”

Mr Whyte urged state and federal politicians to focus on reserving more water in the Menindee Lakes for the Lower Darling, as well as banning northern basin irrigators from pumping out small flushes of water during droughts.

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While he acknowledged blue-green algal blooms and fish kills were natural events, he said the nation’s political leaders had the power to reduce the risk.

Until recently the NSW Water Minister placed embargoes on northern basin irrigators taking water when small pulses of water flowed down the Barwon-Darling during droughts, when the Menindee Lakes held less than 18 months’ supply for Broken Hill.

However the NSW Government’s completion of a $500 million pipeline to supply Broken Hill from the Murray River, rather than the lakes, allows it to remove the embargo on northern cotton irrigators.

Former NSW Water Commissioner David Harriss, who has been working with Lower Darling irrigators, said the embargo should be retained, based on a new trigger of keeping about 400 gigalitres in the Menindee Lakes for the Lower Darling.

“You have to have environmental water in the upper (two Menindee) lakes for the health of the river and to meet stock and domestic needs,” Mr Harriss said.

But Mr Whyte said the NSW Government had lodged a business plan with the Commonwealth to reconfigure the Menindee Lakes and reduce reserves to just 80GL.