Hurry Save The Murray!

Yesterday, our first day of being open for business as an Embassy was busy: visitors, media, phone calls and emails. We are finding that the maps of the whole area attract attention as visitors begin to comprehend the scale of what is being done. There were lots of cups of tea, chats around the fireside, scones and a choice of jams and local honey. Diane distinguished herself for rejecting a scone with vegemite - call yourself Australian!

A late morning visit from the Department of Environment and Heritage: Allan Holmes (Chief Executive, DEH), Russell Seaman (Environmental Manager, Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth, DEH), Louise, Amanda Pritchard, a photographer and Kate (an international student), popped into the Fresh Water Embassy. They were on a trip to the Finniss River and Currency Creek and then across the barrages.

The Embassy staff was quick to offer our legendary hospitality with hot tea and scones and settled in for a chat around the campfire.  It was a hard-hitting exchange that ranged over our concerns with the lack of consultation, the nature of the science driving policy decisions and the rationale for the weirs (“Regulators”). Allan Holmes wanted to have further conversations.  “Why now?” asked Henry Jones. “It’s too late. The damage is being done in front of our eyes. We needed to have these kinds of conversations years ago.”

Anne Hartnett, Chair of the RLCAG, explained, “Our group started because we weren’t being consulted and we are still are not been consulted. We are being talked at and talked down to.” “At meetings,” Gloria Jones said, “We haven’t been able to speak about weirs. We’ve been talked to, not listened to. We’re invited to meetings and not allowed to put our point. We can only talk to what they presented”

The meeting at Clayton, chaired by Dean Brown, came in for a considerable amount of criticism. “People here are polite,” said Diane Bell. “But don’t mistake that for agreement. They are angry. They have been disrespected and told they wouldn’t understand.” At this point the exchange heated up a little and Allan tried to appease us with promise of further open meetings. “With access to all materials,” Diane insisted. “And none of this claiming documents are ‘confidential’ and have to be kept secret.”

Anne echoed what we have all been saying about the science on which these decisions are based. “It is new. They are still learning. This ASS science is speculative and we are not being given access to the relevant materials. The ‘experts’ are coming here now from other universities to do experiments.” “We are not convinced by the science,” Henry Jones stated. “When we went to school science was objective,” said Anne to Henry Jones, “but now it is being taken over by politics and industry. We need to have conversations at the top level about how to balance the needs of the environment with that of irrigators. ”

“I want you to know that these weirs at Clayton Bay, on the Finniss River and Currency Creek are trashing a spiritually important spot and that building these weirs is overkill,” Anne explained. “Salt will be trapped on Goolwa side of the barrage in the new weir pool,’ said Henry Jones. “And it will be worse than ASS. This pool could not be considered an ecological refuge. There will be major fish kills by February/March if the drought continues.

“We are a non-violent group,” Henry emphasised. ”And this is a peaceful vigil.” “But this does not mean we agree with what is happening,” said Diane. “And what is happening with the Pomanda weir?” Allan Holmes did not want to talk about Pomanda. ”And that is one of the problems with your approach,” said Diane. “You have no over-all plan and the Long Term, 10 million planning exercise that is currently underway is being spun. When you drill down on the website for the evidence to support your assertions, you find Media Releases, not science.” Allan Holmes agreed about the political spin and admitted the “experts” were not necessarily particularly good at communicating. “But we will do better,” he insisted and said that he and Russell Seaman would get the material we wanted together and meet with us again.

The flag raising was a bit of a test of ingenuity today. (Don’t forget to pass the cursor over the image to read the caption and click on the image to increase size.)

The road on Kumarangk (Hindmarsh Island) has reached the foreshore and gone straight over the reeds and rushes. What happens when they start to break down?

Where is the Minister? We had heard that Minister Jay Weatherill was going to visit the Milang school children who have been working on the “Save the Turtles” project and they were preparing for his arrival at 3.00pm.  But the DEH team knew he was in Adelaide. So why is the Minister in Adelaide when he is supposed to be in Milang? Why could he not visit with his team? Our invitation to visit is an open one. Give us a call and we will put on the kettle.

Rain: Our bioremediation plot is enjoying the rain. Today, it is sheeting down. The Finniss River has surface a sheet of freshwater and when we get a break in the rain, we’ll start monitoring. Is the sulfuric acid being mobilised or is it being diluted? We have asked to see the EPA monitoing results but are yet to see their data.

Greetings: Climate Emergency Action Network CLEAN SA and Friends of the Earth Adelaide emailed us to say: “Well done to all !! - will join the RLCAG so can keep in touch - hope to be down there again in the next fortnight - sending diplomatic greetings and support from the Climate Emergency Action Network CLEAN SA and Friends of the Earth Adelaide, All the best, Jenny.

Serve the People website carried the story of the launch with some stunning photographs.

Commentary on Adelaide Now: “The commencement of the building of the Clayton weir follows the building of the weir to cut off Lake Albert. The use of the Lower Lakes for water supply is be bypassed by privatised pipelines and continues this government’s bastardisation of the Lower Lakes to appease the Eastern States.” Read on …

And more photographs of the launch

Last day for setting up. The banners and flag poles arrived with JB.  More corflutes with JT. Conduit with MC. Hot potato wedges with SR. Rope and all manner of implements with HJ. Drill with RH. Hammer with DB. Literature and rocks with JY. Plants with CR. It was sunny as we emptied the shed and began laying out the display boards and literature. We hauled the flags, poles and corflute statements to the Look Out and in the brilliant sun set up the flag poles and flew the flags.

Lots of phone calls back and forth. Fingers crossed that all is in place.

Tomorrow is the launch. See you there

Today we continued setting up the Fresh Water Embassy - so much sweeping, sorting and stacking - but we now have the capacity to prepare basic meals: microwave, jug, cords. With the help of Peter Bullock, we have hooks and message boards and corflutes on which people can write messages on Sunday at the launch. The display boards have minds of their own, not that we can complain, they are free: the remnants of previous campaigns.

According to the work SA Water schedule we have, the road on Hindmarsh Island should have been completed today. It wasn’t. But the workers now a have a base camp of their own. See the reflections of the temporary toilets in the still water. The house boat is yet to be moved.

A crystal clear morning at Clayton Bay and the Fresh Water Embassy staff were hard at work getting ready for Sunday. Henry Jones was at Head Quarters (HQ) early and within the hour had rigged up a tarp to shelter us from the wind and weather. Marian Thompson began emptying out the shed, sweeping, sorting and rearranging.

Diane Bell was up at Embassy Look Out having a chat on ABC 891 about the plans for Sunday and the rationale for the Embassy. Ngarrindjeri Elder, Tom Trevorrow joined the conversation and explained the grief the Ngarrindjeri who were being forced to endure damage and interference with their sacred places. media-release-ngarrindjeri-18-june-09. From the Embassy Look Out, the road works on the island that are edging forward are clearly visible and the throb of the engines filled the air.

By lunch time Diane and Marian had the shed clean - with some help from Dave - had taken visitors to our Look Out and organised a fridge and a hot plate for Diane’s home-made soup. Anne Harnett arrived with seven bags of firewood (one a day for the first week), tent pegs and bolts; Suzy Rex delivered the plastic storage boxes, plates, tea, coffee, jars and tasteful basket boxes; Rob Hylton helped us solve the banner-hanging problem and set about installing new display boards. Janette and Bruce Brooks from Finniss and Bev and Alex Stone from Point Sturt joined in the banner extravaganza. Peter Bullock and Suzy brought the urn. Anne delivered another table. After a few mis-starts we got the display boards to stand up. Marie-Claire Levi photographed the action and a good thing too because Diane’s camera decided it was time to pack it in. Who else? The police popped in to tell us about their new arrangements and to give us contact numbers. Meg came by as we were packing up, as did Jane who was walking her two dogs along the foreshore. Marie-Claire produced a fabulous cake and we settled into watch the sun set and enjoy the food. The trucks were still working on the road.