"Natural Sequence Farming contains three valuable elements for combating climate change. All three promise to help farm productivity and longevity as well... it would be very useful for a government body to take over some whole catchments and implement a systematic test of Andrews’ theories over the whole river system: for example, the Hunter River (following the closure of the coal mines there!), or a tributary of the Murray or Darling river. With appropriate compensation and consultation with the farmers involved, and assuming the results are positive, this could lead to the complete renewal of Australia’s inland ecosystems."
Back From The Brink: How Australia’s Landscape Can Be Saved
Peter Andrews
ABC Books 2006
Peter Andrews’ widely acclaimed book Back From The Brink rests on his accomplishments in restoring and sustaining farm landscapes on his own properties, as seen on ABC TV’s Australian Story and Catalyst . Despite many controversies about aspects of his Natural Sequence Farming technique (especially the use of species considered noxious weeds), his analysis of the Australian landscape, and his remedies for the unquestionably disastrous European settler farming practices are gaining widespread interest. Andrews has recently released a follow-up book, Beyond the Brink (which I hope to review in due course).
By using his own trial-and error experience, combined with wisdom learned from many other sources including scientists, farmers, and the accounts of the land from early European explorers of the continent, Andrews has developed techniques to mimic the way he believes the landscape held water and remained fertile prior to human settlement by the aboriginal peoples.
Because Australia is so flat and rainfall so intermittent, Andrews reasons, for the land to support the teeming wildlife that early explorers reported, there must have been a special way that water flowed through the land. After 150 years of sheep and cattle farming, land clearing and bad management, the land is dried out, facing massive salinity breakouts, and crops are failing.
Let’s listen to how Andrews explains his book’s purpose:
“Since the Australian landscape functioned perfectly well on its own for millions of years, we ought to be able to solve the landscape’s current problems by somehow reinstating whatever it was that enabled the landscape to function so efficiently then.”
He describes the ancient landscape’s patterns:
“In the broader floodplains, water entered the ground through sandy, gravelly ‘recharge areas’ and was stored in the layer of sand and clay that underlies much of the continent. In the floodplains themselves, water travelled in creeks and rivers that… were elevated above the surrounding sediment.”
(He later explains that rivers had banks holding them higher than the surrounding land, banks which were built by sediment carried in the river.)
“A true floodplain was what its name suggests: a plain that was periodically flooded. Rivers and creeks did flow across the floodplains, but they weren’t rivers and creeks as we know them. They hadn’t gouged out a channel. They flowed over the surface of the plain, not through a channel, which meant that, whenever there was enough water, they’d spread across the plains on both sides, which, as we have seen, were lower than they were, and the water would soak into the ground.”
Before European settlers came, river systems looked more like long strings of wetlands and only slow-flowing water channels. Reed beds, clay banks and diversion routes meant that the water flowed right across the surface of the landscape, saturating the soil rather than flowing over the surface. Now days our rivers resemble deep drains, with the water down the bottom of steep banks, running straight to the sea. Because the water in the rivers is so low, the underground water table falls. Where irrigation water is pumped onto areas, it pushes down on the salty water lower in the water table, which is then squeezed sideways through the clay to emerge somewhere downhill, damaging soil and crops. Andrews’ techniques aim to keep a layer of fresh water on top of the salty ground water across the landscape.
The book explains that this view of the cause of salinity is different to traditional views, which suggest that salty water rises of its own accord, for example, or where there are no trees to use underground water and keep the water table down.
Natural Sequence Farming is not just a matter of water flows. To hold the water in the soil, and pull it up so that it doesn’t fall down deeper (squeezing the lower saline water sideways and to the surface downhill), it is vital to keep up the vegetation. Andrews also recommends the heavy use of mulching. It is partly here that he recommends the retention of weeds (even nodding thistle, and serrated tussock). He says they thrive on infertile ground; when they have been slashed down and mulched for a while, the ground will regain fertility and grasses will take over again. So for thistles, “The fact that thistles are growing in a paddock shows that the thistles need to be growing there. In other words, it shows that the soil lacks fertility and needs to be regenerated. Thistles do the job perfectly. What’s needed when soil lacks fertility is an aggressive plant that, one, grows rapidly and adds organic bulk to the soil and, two, deters animals from grazing around it, thus enabling the surrounding soil and vegetation to recover. Thistles do both superbly.” While many might try to avoid introduced weeds like thistle, this technique has the advantage of working with the existing environment and not against it. Just as controversially, Andrews suggests willows can be planted as a fast-growing river bank stabiliser.
These uses of introduced weeds are one of the most controversial aspects of Andrews’ recommendations. But he swears by them, so it may be worth abandoning our preconceptions to try out his techniques on a broader scale.
Andrews claims that the destruction of Australia’s natural ecological balance began seriously with the advent of aboriginal "firestick farming" some 50,000 or more years ago. This also appears controversial. A debate about whether aborigines practiced firestick farming at all in areas like Victoria's mountain forests is currently being undertaken among fire experts (1). While there is a chapter called “Australia’s deserts are all man-made” the book does point out that Australia’s dry situation is in part caused by its ancient separation from Antarctica. When these continents were joined as part of the ancient continent Gondwana, rivers would have flowed across Australia from the Antarctic mountains. Since separating from Antarctica (and moving north into hotter latitudes), ecosystems in Australia have evolved to survive with low rainfall.
Andrews contends that “there were once arid rainforests in Central Australia that survived on as little as 125 millimetres of rain (around 5 inches) a year. The aborigines destroyed them with fire, and where these rainforests once stood there is nothing now but desert… it’s a sobering fact that there were no deserts in Australia before the Aborigines arrived”. As the book is largely unreferenced, this reviewer finds such statements hard to judge: are they simply Andrews’ own educated guess, or a well established view of natural history? A quick web search shows some support for Andrews’ thesis (2).
Andrews also claims his methods will work virtually anywhere in Australia, whether on the coastal plain, the high country, or the inland plains. It’s not clear how far this extends into the wet north, the desert areas and so on, and what modifications of his theory may need to be observed with each area, but that is a minor problem.
Andrews also assumes that farmers will continue to farm great numbers of sheep and cattle. While this currently seems self-evident and desirable to most farmers, it seems unlikely that in the face of climate change our ruminant (sheep and cattle) flocks can be maintained at anything more than a fraction of their current size: they release huge amounts of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas. If farmers abandon ruminants – or all hard-hooved animals – on a wide scale this in itself could help with restoration efforts, as their hooves damage the soil structure and water courses considerably.
Despite the controversies I have mentioned, Peter Andrews’ Natural Sequence Farming contains three valuable elements for combating climate change. All three promise to help farm productivity and longevity as well. Firstly, the use of energy intensive, fossil-fuel-derived fertilisers and pesticides can be largely phased out if his system works (also getting rid of a huge cost for farmers). Secondly, the use of mulching instead of ploughing and fertilising locks a lot of carbon into the soil, whereas ploughing and clearing enables it to return to the atmosphere much faster. Thirdly, restoring the water flows of natural ecosystems allows a wide variety of species to return to the landscape – plants, animals, birds and insects. This protects biodiversity, which Andrews sees as an essential element for his system, and certainly crucial for natural systems to survive changing climate.
There is urgency in the book. Andrews thinks that Australia is probably going to have another wet period soon (on a 50 to 100 year cycle of drought and wet). As good as this may sound in the middle of the current drought, our poor water flows mean that big new rainfalls might push even more salt to the surface, destroying huge areas of farm land.
While debate about the use of noxious weeds and the future of cattle and sheep farming will continue, the other aspects of Natural Sequence Farming deserve to be used and tested over wide areas of Australia’s drought-stricken inland. At this stage, in many drought and salinity stricken catchments there is not much to be lost and a lot to be gained.
While many farmers will baulk at such radical changes to their practices, given the financial risk involved, it would be very useful for a government body to take over some whole catchments and implement a systematic test of Andrews’ theories over the whole river system: for example, the Hunter River (following the closure of the coal mines there!), or a tributary of the Murray or Darling river. With appropriate compensation and consultation with the farmers involved, and assuming the results are positive, this could lead to the complete renewal of Australia’s inland ecosystems.
In the meantime, the efforts of community groups can be seen online at the Natural Sequence Association website and Peter Andrews’ ongoing activity at his website.
Footnotes
1. See here and here for a taste of the debate on fire management (including aboriginal practices) at James Woodford's Real Dirt blog.
2. See here for the abstract of one paper describing environmental pressures leading to desertification of Australia’s interior. For an argument that human activity may have impacted, see here.
Read the whole article
Showing newest posts with label Water. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label Water. Show older posts
Feb 1, 2008
Desal plant an unnecessary corporate hand-out
"...the lucrative construction contract for the Wonthaggi plant and its 85-kilometre pipeline are an enormous government handout to construction contractors. The contract will be a public-private partnership.
"This raises the possibility of rising water prices for Melbourne residents. As Cutcliffe pointed out in the December 14 Age, “The cost of operation and investment return could reach $500 million a year, in a contract that would typically bind taxpayers for 30 years or more”."
Although it stated at the last state election in 2006 that it would not go ahead with the construction of a desalination plant, the Victorian Labor government is now pushing for a desalination plant at Wonthaggi, on the South Gippsland coast. Before the environmental impact statement has even been completed, test drilling and compulsory land acquisitions have begun at the proposed site.
South Gippsland residents have formed a Your Water Your Say action group to oppose the development and have organised public meetings and street protests of around 500 people in Wonthaggi.
Melbourne’s wasteful water consumption is at the centre of the campaign against the plant. This was highlighted in a December 9 National Party press release. The Victorian Nationals, who are opposed to the desalination plant, advocate a compulsory “water substitution target” of 30% for Melbourne by 2020 through the capture of stormwater run-off and use of recycled waste water for non-drinking purposes.
The Nationals propose that those who reduce use by more than the set targets would be issued with a tradeable certificate, which could then be bought by users who choose to continue to waste water.
The Victorian Greens, who are also opposed to the desalination plant, suggest water-saving measures as an alternative, including stormwater capture, and also improving domestic, commercial and industrial water-use efficiency.
The proposed Wonthaggi desalination plant will produce 150 gigalitres of drinking water a year, but will discharge 250 gigalitres of concentrated brine into the sea, potentially devastating the local sea life.
The proposed plant will consume vast amounts of electricity. The government has talked of buying electricity generated from renewable sources, although this may only mean in the words of Tony Cutcliffe of the Eureka Project policy and consultancy firm, the plant “will be greenwashed by robbing every iota of wind energy now produced in Victoria”.
Writing in the December 13 Melbourne Age, columnist Kenneth Davidson argued that the greenhouse emissions from the plant “will be equal to putting another 240,000 cars on Melbourne’s roads… What’s worse, all the alternatives — from building new dams, banning logging in the catchment areas, recycling and conservation — would be a fraction of the cost of desalination both to the environment and to taxpayers.”
Cutcliffe has pointed out that Melbourne’s annual rainfall run-off is in the order of 200 gigalitres a year, most of which runs off impermeable roads and roofs straight into rivers and Port Phillip Bay, causing many environmental problems in itself. The Nationals puts the run-off figure at 500 gigalitres.
Melbourne’s private water companies lose about 50 gigalitres per year through old leaky pipes, and about 300 gigalitres of Melbourne’s treated waste water is dumped into the sea each year.
Water savings are another area that needs to be addressed. After much public pressure, the Victorian Labor government released a list last October of the state’s top industrial water users. Real savings can be made here, with some publicised voluntary savings showing what is possible.
Nestle’s ice-cream factory in Mulgrave reduced its water use by 22% during 2007, partly by installing more efficient cleaning equipment, and by recycling water in some operations such as rinsing. Such measures should be replicated across industry.
Most current water restrictions are aimed at households. The ban on home car-washing has no doubt been a boon for the commercial car-wash industry, but it is restrictions on watering gardens that have caused most controversy. There are no restrictions on inefficient toilet flushing mechanisms, but vegetable gardens can only be watered two days a week.
That the government is backing a $3.1 billion desalination plant instead of conservation and efficiency measures poses questions about its motives. Popular characterisations would have it that Premier John Brumby likes big-dollar, big-profile projects that he can attach his name to for posterity.
Another view blames the government’s ongoing commitment to private ownership of public resources. In this view, the lucrative construction contract for the Wonthaggi plant and its 85-kilometre pipeline are an enormous government handout to construction contractors. The contract will be a public-private partnership.
This raises the possibility of rising water prices for Melbourne residents. As Cutcliffe pointed out in the December 14 Age, “The cost of operation and investment return could reach $500 million a year, in a contract that would typically bind taxpayers for 30 years or more”.
Instead of being used to retire old, dirty (but still profitable) coal power stations, the state’s renewable energy will be gobbled up by the desalination white elephant.
On the other hand, home water tanks are not owned by the big corporations that the Labor government likes to do business with. Likewise, water savings from conservation and efficiency measures do nothing to prop up sales to the public of what we used to own anyway — our water.
Originally published in Green Left Weekly issue 738 , 6 February 2008. Read the whole article
"This raises the possibility of rising water prices for Melbourne residents. As Cutcliffe pointed out in the December 14 Age, “The cost of operation and investment return could reach $500 million a year, in a contract that would typically bind taxpayers for 30 years or more”."
Although it stated at the last state election in 2006 that it would not go ahead with the construction of a desalination plant, the Victorian Labor government is now pushing for a desalination plant at Wonthaggi, on the South Gippsland coast. Before the environmental impact statement has even been completed, test drilling and compulsory land acquisitions have begun at the proposed site.
South Gippsland residents have formed a Your Water Your Say action group to oppose the development and have organised public meetings and street protests of around 500 people in Wonthaggi.
Melbourne’s wasteful water consumption is at the centre of the campaign against the plant. This was highlighted in a December 9 National Party press release. The Victorian Nationals, who are opposed to the desalination plant, advocate a compulsory “water substitution target” of 30% for Melbourne by 2020 through the capture of stormwater run-off and use of recycled waste water for non-drinking purposes.
The Nationals propose that those who reduce use by more than the set targets would be issued with a tradeable certificate, which could then be bought by users who choose to continue to waste water.
The Victorian Greens, who are also opposed to the desalination plant, suggest water-saving measures as an alternative, including stormwater capture, and also improving domestic, commercial and industrial water-use efficiency.
The proposed Wonthaggi desalination plant will produce 150 gigalitres of drinking water a year, but will discharge 250 gigalitres of concentrated brine into the sea, potentially devastating the local sea life.
The proposed plant will consume vast amounts of electricity. The government has talked of buying electricity generated from renewable sources, although this may only mean in the words of Tony Cutcliffe of the Eureka Project policy and consultancy firm, the plant “will be greenwashed by robbing every iota of wind energy now produced in Victoria”.
Writing in the December 13 Melbourne Age, columnist Kenneth Davidson argued that the greenhouse emissions from the plant “will be equal to putting another 240,000 cars on Melbourne’s roads… What’s worse, all the alternatives — from building new dams, banning logging in the catchment areas, recycling and conservation — would be a fraction of the cost of desalination both to the environment and to taxpayers.”
Cutcliffe has pointed out that Melbourne’s annual rainfall run-off is in the order of 200 gigalitres a year, most of which runs off impermeable roads and roofs straight into rivers and Port Phillip Bay, causing many environmental problems in itself. The Nationals puts the run-off figure at 500 gigalitres.
Melbourne’s private water companies lose about 50 gigalitres per year through old leaky pipes, and about 300 gigalitres of Melbourne’s treated waste water is dumped into the sea each year.
Water savings are another area that needs to be addressed. After much public pressure, the Victorian Labor government released a list last October of the state’s top industrial water users. Real savings can be made here, with some publicised voluntary savings showing what is possible.
Nestle’s ice-cream factory in Mulgrave reduced its water use by 22% during 2007, partly by installing more efficient cleaning equipment, and by recycling water in some operations such as rinsing. Such measures should be replicated across industry.
Most current water restrictions are aimed at households. The ban on home car-washing has no doubt been a boon for the commercial car-wash industry, but it is restrictions on watering gardens that have caused most controversy. There are no restrictions on inefficient toilet flushing mechanisms, but vegetable gardens can only be watered two days a week.
That the government is backing a $3.1 billion desalination plant instead of conservation and efficiency measures poses questions about its motives. Popular characterisations would have it that Premier John Brumby likes big-dollar, big-profile projects that he can attach his name to for posterity.
Another view blames the government’s ongoing commitment to private ownership of public resources. In this view, the lucrative construction contract for the Wonthaggi plant and its 85-kilometre pipeline are an enormous government handout to construction contractors. The contract will be a public-private partnership.
This raises the possibility of rising water prices for Melbourne residents. As Cutcliffe pointed out in the December 14 Age, “The cost of operation and investment return could reach $500 million a year, in a contract that would typically bind taxpayers for 30 years or more”.
Instead of being used to retire old, dirty (but still profitable) coal power stations, the state’s renewable energy will be gobbled up by the desalination white elephant.
On the other hand, home water tanks are not owned by the big corporations that the Labor government likes to do business with. Likewise, water savings from conservation and efficiency measures do nothing to prop up sales to the public of what we used to own anyway — our water.
Originally published in Green Left Weekly issue 738 , 6 February 2008. Read the whole article
Nov 29, 2006
Water trading is drought profiteering
"Despite the drought, water use is not following logical patterns of conservation. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in July show that while most pastures and crops used less water over 2004-05, water for cotton crops (which have the second highest irrigation usage rate after rice) increased 45.7% on the previous year, as did the area of irrigated cotton."
The worst drought in 1000 years means that water shortage is as burning issue across Australia, cutting across the city-country divide. A Morgan poll, back in October 2005, found that 80% of Australians believe governments are not doing enough about water conservation, a view that has since been reinforced. But just how well will restrictions, water saving devices such as dual-flush toilets and rainwater tanks, and water trading schemes tackle the problem?
Geelong just became the latest of more than 140 Victorian towns on level 4 water restrictions. Brisbane and South-East Queensland, already on level 4(level 5 in Toowoomba), had water supply levels at only 25.51% of capacity as of November 16.
While Brisbane’s water supply is the lowest of Australia’s big cities, it is not unusual. As of November 16, Perth’s water level was at 31%, while as of November 9, Sydney water was at 39.5%, and Melbourne 42.6%. Smaller cities in regional centres are often much worse off. Bendigo, in central Victoria, is in danger of running out of drinking water, as are many other towns across rural Australia.
Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) executive director Don Henry estimated that 75% of Sydney’s annual use of 600 gigalitres of water a year is ultimately flushed into the ocean. He says that Sydney’s water consumption could be half that by 2030 if there was greater investment in water recycling infrastructure, rainwater tanks and efficiencies.
Urban water shortages have prompted some governments, and opposition parties, to push for controversial desalination plants which turn salt water into drinkable water, either from the sea or from recycled waste water. The Liberal Party in Victoria, for instance, supports the construction of a desalination plant, which would soak up $20 million in annual running costs.
For the same amount of money, without factoring in the ongoing running costs, the ACF estimates that 200,000 rainwater tanks could be installed in Victorian households.
Desalination technology is also very expensive to operate, and it uses huge amounts of electricity. As Green Left Weekly has previously reported, a desalination plant in Sydney would require the equivalent to putting another 250,000 new cars on the road, or the energy usage of 120,000 households.
Logging also reduces the water catchment for cities. According to Victorian environment groups, the state government’s own reports estimate that 20,000 megalitres of water would be saved every year if logging was stopped in just one Melbourne catchment. Friends of the Earth believes that this would be enough to supply 80,000 homes.
Rural water shortages seem more dire than urban ones, if only because the impact on the landscape is so stark. Agricultural water supplies are generally taken from rivers and groundwater, with often devastating effects on riverine and floodplain environments: ancient eucalypt stands are dying, wetlands are drying out, and rising water tables bring salt which renders soil infertile.
Nearly three times the annual average flow in the Murray River is stored in dams and weirs across the Murray-Darling Basin. But occasions when the Murray River mouth stops flowing have increased from one year in 20 under natural conditions, to one year in two today.
The devastated Murray-Darling Basin highlights the problems associated with Australia’s agricultural water use. More than 80% of the average annual volume of water in the Murray is diverted for industry and domestic use, of which irrigation accounts for 95%. Water extracted for irrigation has increased by 76% from 1985 to 1996-97. Surface irrigation, such as flooding, accounted for more than 60% of irrigation in 2004-05, despite being the most wasteful method.
Despite the drought, water use is not following logical patterns of conservation. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in July show that while most pastures and crops used less water over 2004-05, water for cotton crops (which have the second highest irrigation usage rate after rice) increased 45.7% on the previous year, as did the area of irrigated cotton.
The state and federal governments’ response to the drought and growing water use has been to restrict water usage and introduce water trading schemes. But the much-advertised water use restrictions are a tokenistic response to a massive problem: reservoirs in major cities continue to fall despite restrictions of up to level four in some areas.
The major focus for governments now is water trading — a market mechanism to regulate the use of scarce water. Land title is separated from entitlements to water use, which can then be bought and sold.
As Professor Sharon Beder of the University of Wollongong explained in her Environmental Principles and Policies (UNSW Press 2006): “The idea is that water trading will enable those who can make the most money out of the water to buy it and for those who make less money out of it to sell it, rather than use it on ‘low value’ crops”. While the amount of water available to be diverted from the river is subject to a cap (which varies depending on conditions), the water use is still over-allocated in dry years, as indicated by the ABS statistics cited above.
While measures being implemented under the National Water Initiative (NWI) may mean towns can purchase drinking water under the trading system, water trading is largely aimed at the agricultural industry, the bulk of the users.
The purpose of water trading for industry is to maximise profitability: environmental considerations don’t make it onto the balance sheets. As Beder pointed out: “There has been a shift in Australia from wheat growing to cotton growing because cotton is a more profitable crop … [but] cotton is much more dependent on water and agricultural chemicals than wheat.”
Beder outlined other problems of water markets: speculation may disrupt the whole system. “[T]hose who need the water for their farms can’t outbid the big players who are often not farmers at all. Real estate agent Neil Camm … has found that water trading is more profitable than real estate trading and with an annual turnover of 100 000 megalitres claims to be Australia’s biggest water trader.”
Household water saving devices, such as dual or non-flush toilets and rainwater tanks, are a worthwhile step. But as individual households only use a small amount of the overall water supply, the focus by governments on individual solutions are a distraction from solving the main problem: the huge waste of water by industry and agribusiness.
The gravity of the current drought should impel conservation measures that take account of the stability of food supply, the future of agricultural export crops and the water infrastructure for urban industry. The state and federal governments’ response so far is to further privatise this precious resource. Relying on the market to solve the water crisis ultimately means handing more power over scarce supplies to unaccountable corporations.
A more rational and ecological approach would include mandated reductions in water use for industry, and returning water flows to rivers. While state and federal governments agreed to return 500 gigalitres to the Murray River over five years from November 2004, this has not yet begun (and it is only a third of the amount recommended by scientists). In fact, PM John Howard has even talked of diverting water from wetlands to water supplies, further destroying river environments to prop up agribusiness’ voracious water usage.
Environment organisations are urging measures that would reduce industrial water usage, return significant flows to rivers and remove logging operations from supply catchments. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has called for the buy-back of water allocations, and a shift away from crops such as cotton and rice. These measures should be the beginning of a much more comprehensive social and economic plan by governments to overhaul Australia’s agriculture and water use.
The market is not geared to managing severe environmental problems. Instead of treating water and other resources as commodities to buy and sell without regard for their real usage value, the current water crisis demands a national plan to re-allocate farmland, upgrade water infrastructure to remove waste and reduce unnecessary use.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. John Howard is holding a fire sale of the last water as drought burns the country.
Read the whole article
The worst drought in 1000 years means that water shortage is as burning issue across Australia, cutting across the city-country divide. A Morgan poll, back in October 2005, found that 80% of Australians believe governments are not doing enough about water conservation, a view that has since been reinforced. But just how well will restrictions, water saving devices such as dual-flush toilets and rainwater tanks, and water trading schemes tackle the problem?
Geelong just became the latest of more than 140 Victorian towns on level 4 water restrictions. Brisbane and South-East Queensland, already on level 4(level 5 in Toowoomba), had water supply levels at only 25.51% of capacity as of November 16.
While Brisbane’s water supply is the lowest of Australia’s big cities, it is not unusual. As of November 16, Perth’s water level was at 31%, while as of November 9, Sydney water was at 39.5%, and Melbourne 42.6%. Smaller cities in regional centres are often much worse off. Bendigo, in central Victoria, is in danger of running out of drinking water, as are many other towns across rural Australia.
Australian Conservation Foundation’s (ACF) executive director Don Henry estimated that 75% of Sydney’s annual use of 600 gigalitres of water a year is ultimately flushed into the ocean. He says that Sydney’s water consumption could be half that by 2030 if there was greater investment in water recycling infrastructure, rainwater tanks and efficiencies.
Urban water shortages have prompted some governments, and opposition parties, to push for controversial desalination plants which turn salt water into drinkable water, either from the sea or from recycled waste water. The Liberal Party in Victoria, for instance, supports the construction of a desalination plant, which would soak up $20 million in annual running costs.
For the same amount of money, without factoring in the ongoing running costs, the ACF estimates that 200,000 rainwater tanks could be installed in Victorian households.
Desalination technology is also very expensive to operate, and it uses huge amounts of electricity. As Green Left Weekly has previously reported, a desalination plant in Sydney would require the equivalent to putting another 250,000 new cars on the road, or the energy usage of 120,000 households.
Logging also reduces the water catchment for cities. According to Victorian environment groups, the state government’s own reports estimate that 20,000 megalitres of water would be saved every year if logging was stopped in just one Melbourne catchment. Friends of the Earth believes that this would be enough to supply 80,000 homes.
Rivers and irrigation
Rural water shortages seem more dire than urban ones, if only because the impact on the landscape is so stark. Agricultural water supplies are generally taken from rivers and groundwater, with often devastating effects on riverine and floodplain environments: ancient eucalypt stands are dying, wetlands are drying out, and rising water tables bring salt which renders soil infertile.
Nearly three times the annual average flow in the Murray River is stored in dams and weirs across the Murray-Darling Basin. But occasions when the Murray River mouth stops flowing have increased from one year in 20 under natural conditions, to one year in two today.
The devastated Murray-Darling Basin highlights the problems associated with Australia’s agricultural water use. More than 80% of the average annual volume of water in the Murray is diverted for industry and domestic use, of which irrigation accounts for 95%. Water extracted for irrigation has increased by 76% from 1985 to 1996-97. Surface irrigation, such as flooding, accounted for more than 60% of irrigation in 2004-05, despite being the most wasteful method.
Despite the drought, water use is not following logical patterns of conservation. Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in July show that while most pastures and crops used less water over 2004-05, water for cotton crops (which have the second highest irrigation usage rate after rice) increased 45.7% on the previous year, as did the area of irrigated cotton.
The state and federal governments’ response to the drought and growing water use has been to restrict water usage and introduce water trading schemes. But the much-advertised water use restrictions are a tokenistic response to a massive problem: reservoirs in major cities continue to fall despite restrictions of up to level four in some areas.
The major focus for governments now is water trading — a market mechanism to regulate the use of scarce water. Land title is separated from entitlements to water use, which can then be bought and sold.
As Professor Sharon Beder of the University of Wollongong explained in her Environmental Principles and Policies (UNSW Press 2006): “The idea is that water trading will enable those who can make the most money out of the water to buy it and for those who make less money out of it to sell it, rather than use it on ‘low value’ crops”. While the amount of water available to be diverted from the river is subject to a cap (which varies depending on conditions), the water use is still over-allocated in dry years, as indicated by the ABS statistics cited above.
While measures being implemented under the National Water Initiative (NWI) may mean towns can purchase drinking water under the trading system, water trading is largely aimed at the agricultural industry, the bulk of the users.
The purpose of water trading for industry is to maximise profitability: environmental considerations don’t make it onto the balance sheets. As Beder pointed out: “There has been a shift in Australia from wheat growing to cotton growing because cotton is a more profitable crop … [but] cotton is much more dependent on water and agricultural chemicals than wheat.”
Beder outlined other problems of water markets: speculation may disrupt the whole system. “[T]hose who need the water for their farms can’t outbid the big players who are often not farmers at all. Real estate agent Neil Camm … has found that water trading is more profitable than real estate trading and with an annual turnover of 100 000 megalitres claims to be Australia’s biggest water trader.”
Planning for efficiency
Household water saving devices, such as dual or non-flush toilets and rainwater tanks, are a worthwhile step. But as individual households only use a small amount of the overall water supply, the focus by governments on individual solutions are a distraction from solving the main problem: the huge waste of water by industry and agribusiness.
The gravity of the current drought should impel conservation measures that take account of the stability of food supply, the future of agricultural export crops and the water infrastructure for urban industry. The state and federal governments’ response so far is to further privatise this precious resource. Relying on the market to solve the water crisis ultimately means handing more power over scarce supplies to unaccountable corporations.
A more rational and ecological approach would include mandated reductions in water use for industry, and returning water flows to rivers. While state and federal governments agreed to return 500 gigalitres to the Murray River over five years from November 2004, this has not yet begun (and it is only a third of the amount recommended by scientists). In fact, PM John Howard has even talked of diverting water from wetlands to water supplies, further destroying river environments to prop up agribusiness’ voracious water usage.
Environment organisations are urging measures that would reduce industrial water usage, return significant flows to rivers and remove logging operations from supply catchments. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has called for the buy-back of water allocations, and a shift away from crops such as cotton and rice. These measures should be the beginning of a much more comprehensive social and economic plan by governments to overhaul Australia’s agriculture and water use.
The market is not geared to managing severe environmental problems. Instead of treating water and other resources as commodities to buy and sell without regard for their real usage value, the current water crisis demands a national plan to re-allocate farmland, upgrade water infrastructure to remove waste and reduce unnecessary use.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. John Howard is holding a fire sale of the last water as drought burns the country.
Read the whole article
Nov 15, 2006
Summit fiddles while drought burns Australia
As the November 7 emergency water summit of federal and state parliamentarians was told that the current drought is the worst in 1000 years, the opposition parties criticised the governments for fiddling while the drought worsens. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert claimed the summit “shied away from making the tough decisions at a time when urgent action was sorely needed”.
The summit has called for permanent water trading, meaning buying water from rural areas and moving it into cities, or to needier areas. Prime Minister John Howard has already flagged diverting water flows from wetlands to supply drinking water.
Siewert condemned Howard’s short-sightedness. “You need a healthy environment to support people”, she said, adding, “Trading and the market is not going to address this crisis; we have over-allocated our water system. We need hard decisions by government to address the issues of over-allocation to buyback leases.”
While governments are implementing restrictions on home use of water, large industrial and agricultural users are being propped up. The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for the government to buy back water entitlements from willing farmers. Executive director Don Henry said that environmental needs “mustn’t be compromised as we struggle through these tough times”. However, agriculture minister Peter McGauran has ruled this out.
Siewert pointed to those irrigators using the most water, commenting: “The real issue is whether we should sacrifice the long-term health of the water supplies of our cities and towns and cause irreversible damage to our ecological assets so that irrigators growing cotton and rice can squeeze out a few more years.”
Water has become a key issue in the Victorian state elections as the state Labor government has implemented stage two restrictions for Melbourne. The Liberal opposition wants a new dam built on the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne’s west, and the Bracks government has announced its “Eastern Water Recycling Proposal”. This will replace 135 giga-litres of drinkable water, currently being consumed by the cooling towers of the Latrobe Valley power stations, with treated waste water from the Carrum Downs plant that is currently being discharged through the Gunnamatta Beach ocean outfall. Little is known about the proportion of water used by large industry, such as power plants, but this gives a glimpse.
Sue Bull, the Socialist Alliance upper house candidate for the Western Victoria Region, criticised the government’s “stop-gap measures”. “This government is happy with trading water, something that is sure to lead to household users being charged more in the longer term”, she told Green Left Weekly. “Such measures do not address the problem of how much water is being wasted. The enormous waste of water from industry and large-scale agriculture needs to end. We can also secure supply if we safeguard catchments, such as the Otway Ranges, from logging.”
The Socialist Alliance argues that water use can be reduced by steeply increasing prices to big companies, mandating the use of recycled water for all industrial purposes and phasing out agribusiness farming in the Murray-Darling basin.
Originally published in Green Left Weekly issue 690, 15 November 2006. Read the whole article
The summit has called for permanent water trading, meaning buying water from rural areas and moving it into cities, or to needier areas. Prime Minister John Howard has already flagged diverting water flows from wetlands to supply drinking water.
Siewert condemned Howard’s short-sightedness. “You need a healthy environment to support people”, she said, adding, “Trading and the market is not going to address this crisis; we have over-allocated our water system. We need hard decisions by government to address the issues of over-allocation to buyback leases.”
While governments are implementing restrictions on home use of water, large industrial and agricultural users are being propped up. The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for the government to buy back water entitlements from willing farmers. Executive director Don Henry said that environmental needs “mustn’t be compromised as we struggle through these tough times”. However, agriculture minister Peter McGauran has ruled this out.
Siewert pointed to those irrigators using the most water, commenting: “The real issue is whether we should sacrifice the long-term health of the water supplies of our cities and towns and cause irreversible damage to our ecological assets so that irrigators growing cotton and rice can squeeze out a few more years.”
Water has become a key issue in the Victorian state elections as the state Labor government has implemented stage two restrictions for Melbourne. The Liberal opposition wants a new dam built on the Maribyrnong River in Melbourne’s west, and the Bracks government has announced its “Eastern Water Recycling Proposal”. This will replace 135 giga-litres of drinkable water, currently being consumed by the cooling towers of the Latrobe Valley power stations, with treated waste water from the Carrum Downs plant that is currently being discharged through the Gunnamatta Beach ocean outfall. Little is known about the proportion of water used by large industry, such as power plants, but this gives a glimpse.
Sue Bull, the Socialist Alliance upper house candidate for the Western Victoria Region, criticised the government’s “stop-gap measures”. “This government is happy with trading water, something that is sure to lead to household users being charged more in the longer term”, she told Green Left Weekly. “Such measures do not address the problem of how much water is being wasted. The enormous waste of water from industry and large-scale agriculture needs to end. We can also secure supply if we safeguard catchments, such as the Otway Ranges, from logging.”
The Socialist Alliance argues that water use can be reduced by steeply increasing prices to big companies, mandating the use of recycled water for all industrial purposes and phasing out agribusiness farming in the Murray-Darling basin.
Originally published in Green Left Weekly issue 690, 15 November 2006. Read the whole article
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