Australia’s new draft Murray River plan is a threat to groundwater
Groundwater ‘at risk’ in basin plan The Age, 24 Jan 12, A GROUNDWATER expert has attacked the government’s draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan, saying it points to a risky over-allocation of precious underground water.
At a conference on groundwater in Sydney yesterday, Professor Craig Simmons said the federal government had done a ”major U-turn” from the draft guide released in 2010 that proposed a reduction of 160 gigalitres of groundwater.
”We have now seen a proposal to increase that from current groundwater extraction in the basin – which is around 1740 gigalitres of water – to up to 4340 per annum,” the director of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training in South Australia said.
Professor Simmons said groundwater was being treated as a free resource that could be tapped at will. In reality, the usage of groundwater in the Murray-Darling basin often exceeded the rate of recharge. It will become more important in the future as surface supplies are depleted, he said.
Professor Robert Glennon, from the University of Arizona, warned that Australians were in the grip of a ”hydro-illogical cycle”, with concerns about water management fading as rainfall improved.
Was Australia going to deny reality and backtrack on water reforms simply because the country was no longer in drought, he asked….. http://www.theage.com.au/national/groundwater-at-risk-in-basin-plan-20120123-1qdua.html#ixzz1kQ4KnkpT
No comments yet.
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
Leave a comment