Water promised earlier this year by the Federal Government to ensure the Murray River’s survival will not be delivered until 2010 under its $10billion national water plan, the Australian Conservation Foundation says.

In a report issued today, the peak national environment group warns the continuing water crisis caused by over-allocation of irrigation water across the Murray-Darling Basin has turned the globally protected Coorong wetlands in South Australia into a dying “sink for salt and silt”.

Vast areas of the Coorong’s lagoons are now six times saltier than sea water, “creating a virtual Dead Sea” and pelicans have not bred in the wetlands for the past 15 years. The Coorong, where the Colin Thiele classic Storm Boy was filmed in 1976, was home to Australia’s largest permanent pelican breeding colony.

The report says more than half of all river red gums across the Chowilla floodplains in the lower Murray are dead or stressed, waterbird populations have crashed to as little as 1per cent of previous numbers and Murray cod numbers have declined by 30per cent in the past 50 years.

Leading scientists have warned wetlands and river systems across the Murray-Darling Basin are on the verge of irreversible collapse, with water bird numbers at their lowest in 25 years.

Head of ecology at Adelaide University David Paton said the deteriorating state of the Coorong was “a national emergency”, and further delays in returning water were politically irresponsible.

“The warning signs have been there for well over a decade, but governments have allowed more land to be opened up for irrigation. One or two more years without environmental flows will make full recovery of the Coorong costly, if not impossible,” he said.

The ACF has urged both major political parties to fast-track expenditure to restore environmental flows to the Murray, returning 500gigalitres within the next two years, and 15000GL by 2014.

Neither party has committed to definite targets or time lines.

“If our wetlands and wildlife are to survive, the party that forms government after the federal election must fast-track the spending of the $3billion already set aside to tackle over-allocation under the national plan for water security,” the foundation’s healthy rivers campaigner, Dr Arlene Buchan, said.

Over the next three years, the $10billion plan would “deliver next to nothing at best 200GL while the science is telling us the river system needs at least 1500 gigalitres just to have a moderate chance of survival,” she said.

Australian Greens environment spokeswoman Rachel Siewert said delays in returning over-allocated water to the Murray could extend to 2014 or 2017 in some cross-border catchment areas.

“The environmental flows cannot be delivered under current state catchment management plans, even in areas where CSIRO reports have identified current levels of water extraction as unsustainable. This needs to be changed as an urgent priority in making sure water is returned to the Murray” she said.

University of NSW biologist Professor Richard Kingsford said a recent aerial survey across the Murray-Darling Basin revealed waterbirds numbers were at a record low. The only areas where birds appeared to be breeding were on unregulated rivers in central Australia.

“This is the 25th year we’ve conducted the survey, and it’s the worst we’ve seen. We are seeing ecosystems collapse … It’s a combination of drought and the way that we’ve run the rivers hard without considering the long-term impacts.”

Professor Kingsford said government water agencies had also resisted necessary reforms and adopted a “business as usual” approach to water use despite “obvious signs that this juggernaut was coming.”

Source: Rosslyn Beeby The Canberra Times