Hurry Save The Murray!

Just after noon today, pumps began taking water from Lake Alexandrina. Alexandrina. They are temporary pumps, like so much of what is happening down here in the Lower Murray and Lakes, but the action marks another phase in the tragedy of mismanagement of the Murray-Darling River system. Bigger pumps will arrive at Clayton Bay later next week and will have the capacity to pump 1 GL a day into what some are calling the ‘Goolwa Lake’ – the stretch of water between the Clayton ‘Regulator’ and the Goolwa barrage.

The SA Government has allocated 50GL of ‘Environmental Water’ to Lake Alexandrina but 27.5GL of that water is to be pumped into the newly created ‘Goolwa Lake’ to bring it to 0.3m AHD. In the meantime the lake levels will continue to drop. The RLCAG asks:
1.    “How will this pumping be monitored and how will the community be informed to ensure transparency?
2.    How can we be assured that only 27.5 Gl of the 50Gl of water allocated to Lake Alexandrina will be pumped into the ‘Goolwa Lake’?
3.    If the pumps can pump one Gigalitre a day, why will it take 8-10 weeks?”
4.    “What if the 27.5 Gl of pumped water does not fill the ‘Goolwa Lake’ to the required level (0.3mAHD)? Can the level ever reach 0.7m AHD, the height at which water would be released through the barrages to the Coorong or siphoned back into Lake Alexandrina? Where will this water be sourced and who will pay for it?
5.    If Lake Alexandra becomes too shallow for pumping, or if seawater is brought into the lakes, will water be sourced from the Langhorne Creek pipeline?
6.    If the ‘Goolwa Lake’ grows an algal bloom in late summer, who will pay for, and supply the water which will be required to pump it out to sea?
7.    If water extractions continue to increase from the unregulated Finniss River, and Lake Alexandrina contains sea-water, from where will the ‘Goolwa Lake’ source its top-up water? The Langhorne Creek pipeline?
8.    “What does it mean to say the tributaries are acidic when we see signs of healthy recovery? We have the EPA statistics, but where is the science that addresses the whole system not just the soil chemistry?
9.    What does it mean when concerned, independent ecologists say the threat is over-stated? On what basis does the SA Government say there are 20,000 hectares of acid soils?  Why is there no public debate?
10.    And what of Lake Alexandrina?”