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Friday, April 20, 2007

Not a Drop


With the driest conditions east of the Sahara, irrigators along the Murray Darling Basin face a bleak future. If there is no substantial rain in the next two months, their allocations to water their crops will be cut to zero. Generations of farmers face potential ruin as certain crops such as vines and citrus may have to be sacrificed. These take years to regenerate. The area irrigated by this huge river system provides up to 40 percent of Australias crops and food prices are certain to rise. The water from the river is being reserved for humans who live along the river course until it rains in substantial quantities.

Adelaide depends on the river for almost all of the water supply. Level 5 water restrictions are almost certain to be enacted shortly. Still no serious proposals for alternative sources of water such as desalination.

Hello? It may not rain substantially for years.

The cartoon by Leunig made me laugh, because the last time we had substantial rain was when we had our two ducks and their was enough water to clean up after them. It would be much more challenging now. They now live in a farm in Gawler. I wonder if it is raining there?

In the interim, we will just have to do our rain dances without them. C'mon rain. Where are you????

19 comments:

James Higham said...

The Murray-Darling has always been a problem. The Wimmera area, particularly above it near Swan Hill, has always had the salinity problem. It might be one reason the South Ozzie water is so bad and the beer such crap [I've forgotten - is it Coopers?].

On the other hand, Sydney has water and yet the beer is the crappiest in the land - Retches [I deliberately misspelled it].

No one really knows the solution. Are you in this field? The salinity, I mean?

Colin Campbell said...

Yes it is Coopers, an excellent quaff, once you have become used to it. I still remember my first gulp. I just about wretched. Is that how you spell it? The only thing that most Ozzie beers have going for them is that they are served really cold and it is generally quite hot here, the combination of which works quite well.

We do some work in this area, but most of our work is related to where did those frickin petroleum hydrocarbons go. The reality is that most groundwater in this part of the world is not too available. It either has too much total dissolved solids, is too saline, is too deep, too difficult to extract. The only real options are the River Murray, rainwater catchments and desalination. There are a few backyard bores, but not on a commercial scale near Adelaide.

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