’We’re entitled to fresh water’: Darling river communities call for help

Communities in far west NSW say they deserve clean water, as a new report reveals algae outbreaks are costing more than $95 million a year.

Fish kills at Menindee this month. Picture: Michael Minns

AS the Labor Party takes office in NSW this week, the incoming water minister faces an unprecedented mess: millions of dead, rotten fish have turned the Darling-Baaka river into a festering soup and local councils are carting drinking water hundreds of kilometres to residents, warning them to avoid toxic algal blooms.

Menindee resident Karen Bates Page said the incoming NSW Labor government needed to urgently address poor water quality for people along the Darling-Baaka.

“We just want a fair go. We’re entitled to freshwater,” she said.

It will be the first time Labor has taken on the water portfolio since the Coalition came to power since 2011.

The minister taking on the role has not yet been named, but Premier Chris Minns has confirmed he will be visiting the lower Darling township of Menindee “over the next few weeks” and has committed to an investigation into this month’s mass fish deaths.

Ms Bates Page, who turns 72 this year, has been showering with rainwater from a bucket since she returned to her flood-hit home at Menindee a few weeks ago.

Central Darling Shire Council has been carting clean water to residents for weeks following a large-scale algae outbreak and mass fish kill that has rendered water from the river unusable.

While the scale of the recent fish kill was unprecedented, Ms Bastes Page said issues with water quality were nothing new.

In recent years, blue-green algae had bloomed in the river “every year without fail,” she said.

“You can’t eat what’s in the river now. You can’t let your dog go for a swim in the river.”

“What we need is for small and medium flows to be let down the river instead of being held back for irrigators to pump.”

Fish kills at Menindee this month.

Algal blooms increasing

People who live along the Darling-Baaka say algae outbreaks have been getting worse over the past two decades.

In a report released last week by Water Research Australia, researchers found increasingly-frequent algal blooms were costing Australian taxpayers more than $95 million a year, leaving water authorities scrambling for staff and resources, and forcing public recreation areas to close for months.

The report, which is the first in two decades to assess the cost of managing cyanobacteria in Australia, found a single algal bloom could cost a water authority up to $1 million for water treatment, or $500,000 to cart in replacement water, with staff asked to work up to 15 hours of overtime per week to manage an outbreak.

Algal blooms are often triggered by high levels of nutrients in water and high temperatures, and can be prolonged by a lack of healthy flow.

UNSW School of Civil and Environmental Engineering lecturer and report author Bojan Tamburic said completely removing algal toxins from water could be “very expensive”, and was “rarely an option for smaller treatment plants in regional areas”, leaving them to cart water in from other locations.

It found between January 2019 and June 2021, 20 water storages across NSW were forced to close to visitors for an average of 38 days each per year, costing an estimated $8.3 million/ year in lost tourism revenue.

Losses to the town of Menindee alone were $2.3 million annually, while Hume Dam closures were costing Albury about $450,000/year, according to the report.

Mr Tamburic said state governments should consider funding riparian zones along rivers to reduce the inflow of nitrogen and phosphorous to rivers from agriculture — a major cause of algal blooms.

Elder Ngarrangarra-li Walaaybaa Rangers project officer Norma Kennedy says the Namoi river is no longer healthy and clear, like it was when she was a child. Photo: Dharriwaa Elders Group Walgett

River rangers call for action

Upstream from Menindee, Elder Ngarrangarra-li Walaaybaa Rangers project officer Norma Kennedy said the Namoi River, a Darling-Baaka tributary, was still “muggy” and choked with algae weeks after the rangers alerted authorities to a fish kill in the river in February.

Ms Kennedy said there was not enough freshwater flowing through the river system to keep it healthy, despite last year’s floods.

“We need our waters to be healthy and clear, and not the condition it’s in now,” she said.

Growing up, she used to eat fish from the Namoi river every day. Now, she rarely eats the fish out of concern for her health, she said.

The ENWR ranger group, despite its role monitoring water quality and ecosystems in the Namoi, may be forced to stop its work in a few months. Its funding is only guaranteed until 30 June.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said in a statement she was still considering whether to extend funding for five ranger groups in the Murray Darling Basin beyond mid year.