Hurry Save The Murray!

Media Release from the River, Lakes and Coorong Groups Inc

Stop Press: Common sense prevails.

Floodwaters will bypass the Menindee Lakes

January 14. 2010. Environment Minister Jay Weatherill has told Channel 7 News that the floodwaters currently coursing down the Murray-Darling system will bypass the Menindee Lakes and be stored in Lake Victoria. This means SA can now deliver environmental flows to the ailing Lakes Alexandrina and Albert.

What a clever resolution! All parties can celebrate. The cooperative approach with the states has succeeded.

Premiers Mike Rann and Kristina Keneally can both claim they have acted in the national interests.

In Canberra  Senator Penny Wong can continue to promote the Murray-Darling Basin Authority as the national body to manage Australia’s River.

And Acting Prime Minister, Julia Gillard?

Our impassioned plea for Ms Gillard to intervene was published as an Open Letter in the Adelaide Advertiser on Tuesday January 12, a day before her Canberra meeting with the Basin Officials Committee.

Our second Open Letter (see above 15 January), to be published in the Independent, tomorrow, repeats our plea and asks: “Will this be the week we made history, or the week we continued mucking around with the Murray?”

It appears we have made history.

We consider our Open Letters to have been answered: hundreds of GLs will soon be in Lake Victoria.

Now we need to see how much will flow to SA and when. It is no longer possible for the SA Government to claim there is no fresh water for the Lower Murray and Lakes.

The River, Lakes and Coorong Action Group Inc (RLCAG) has set their sights on the floodwaters as critical to the health of the river as a whole.

We are watching.