Murray Darling

May 9, 2018 4:49 PM

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is six years in and Australian taxpayers have spent $8 billion on it so far — yet the internationally significant ecosystem at the end of the basin, the Coorong, is dying.

Scientists have signed the Murray-Darling Basin Declaration to explain what has gone wrong, to call for a freeze on funding for new irrigation projects until the outcomes of water recovery has been fully and independently audited, and to call for the establishment of an independent, expert body to deliver on the key goals of the Water Act (2007).

The federal government has successfully put pressure on the United Nations to delete all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling river system from a published study, according to the author of an expert report.

posted by spaceburglar (8 comments total)

The madness is not limited to Australia. The US spent trillions (in adjusted dollars) from the early to mid 20th century in dam building mania which was a) economically unjustifiable, and b) ecologically devastating.

There was no reason to try to irrigate most of the areas irrigated, the crop value is so low that the water has to be given to the farmers so cheaply that even without interest the water sales won't make up the cost of the dams and canals within the expected lifespan of the dams and canals.

There's something about desert that just, to some people, seems to compel them to the most ecologically disastrous, economically unfeasible, irrigation projects. The idea of sunny land not devoted to farming seems to offend them on a deep emotional level.

So take heart Australia, you aren't alone! America demolished millions of acres of pristine wilderness during its dam and irrigation fanaticism.
posted by sotonohito at 6:47 PM on May 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm pretty sure that my dad was hit up twice for contributions to improve the same piece of land: once to drain a malarial swamp; once to rehabilitate an important wetland. Those contributions would have been some decades apart, but still.
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:47 PM on May 9, 2018 [4 favorites]

Cubbie Station sucked it dry, using the equivalent of slave labour to grow and harvest cotton, which gets sent overseas so that more slave labour can spin it into shitty five dollar Target shirts, and then ship it back to us.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:55 PM on May 9, 2018 [10 favorites]

Sounds like a plot line from an episode of the excellent Utopia / Dreamland (Nation building!). Except depressingly real.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:04 PM on May 9, 2018 [2 favorites]

A few years ago I wrote about the investment fund The Nature Conservancy set up to help restore the basin's wetlands.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:46 PM on May 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Cubbie Station sucked it dry

It might seem difficult for people living in countries where it actually rains occasionally to understand how a single farm could in fact be responsible for diverting most of the flow from one of our nation's major rivers, but quite seriously this is exactly what happened.
posted by flabdablet at 9:22 AM on May 10, 2018 [6 favorites]

The federal government has successfully put pressure on the United Nations to delete all criticism

Greg Hunt, the World's Best Minister and famous typographical error, used to do this kind of thing all the time wrt Barrier Reef fuckery when he was our Minister Against the Environment.

Fucker is in charge of Health now, God save us.
posted by flabdablet at 9:28 AM on May 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

Is there a part 2 of this out yet? Not sure if it's to come or if I missed the link somewhere.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:36 PM on May 10, 2018