The Rudd Government faces global censure at an international wetlands conference in South Korea over its failure to take emergency action to save the dying Coorong wetlands, conservationists say.

The support of high-profile global ”green” celebrities is also being sought to demand the Government move more swiftly to save the coastal ”lagoon and dune” landscape in South Australia where Colin Thiele’s award-winning children’s book Storm Boy was filmed in the mid-1970s.

The region was now so environmentally degraded it was ‘’scarcely recognisable” as the landscape depicted in the much-loved Australian classic, Coorong, Lakes and Murray Waterkeeper, Paul Davis said.

The full article can be found here

During that time she will create artworks using detritus collected from Port Phillip Bay beaches. These works will include a companion piece for An Octopus’s Garden which was made from materials collected from Discovery Bay near Portland.
Members of the public are welcome to take part.
The EcoCentre is in St Kilda Botanical Gardens. Cnr Herbert and Blessington Streets, St Kilda, Melway ref. 58 B11

Why not become the first ever CEO of Waterkeepers Australia.

Waterkeepers Australia is a not-for-profit, independent organisation, formed in 2004 to establish and support a national community of Waterkeepers actively protecting and restoring waterways for all living things to enjoy. We do what no other organisation does; we put a person on the water to act as a voice for that waterway. The national office in Carlton, Victoria is the support framework for the member groups across Australia.

The Board of Waterkeepers Australia is looking for a volunteer CEO who can help guide and drive Waterkeepers Australia at a critical time in its growth.

If you care about Australia’s rivers, estuaries, lakes, wetlands, bays and coasts and you want to help an emerging charity become a success, please read the position description or contact Jennifer Singfield, Chair on 0438 690 359 or (07) 3869 0359.

We are flexible on hours and conditions so please give us a call!

ceo-position-description

For the full story and monthly reports go to the: Werribee Riverkeeper Page

For more information on Scientifiques Sans Frontieres Australia go to: www.ssfaustralia.org

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 18/06/2008
Reporter: Rachel Carbonell
For the Video go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2278901.htm

Scientists are warning the Murray Basin is on the brink of ecological collapse, saying there is just six months left to save it. They sounded the alarm, in a report to the Federal Government a month ago.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES: There have been warnings for years about the declining health of the Murray-Darling river system. But a leaked scientific report has delivered the most dire prediction yet.
It says if water isn’t released into the choking Coorong wetlands and lower lakes in South Australia, they’ll die within months. The predicted deadline for disaster falls a month before the ministerial council in charge of solving the problem is even due to discuss it.
Rachel Carbonell reports.

RACHEL CARBONELL: To the untrained eye, these vast lakes at the lower end of the Murray River in South Australia still be thriving. But those big areas of beach shouldn’t be there. They show a system shrinking beyond return.
On the ground, the crisis is more obvious. It’s not just water disappearing, but the plant and animal species it supports.

PAUL DAVIS, WATERKEEPERS AUSTRALIA: We see turtles struggling to survive, covered with huge outgrowths of marine worm. When we see estuarine crabs smothered with barnacles and on their last legs dying with a weight of barnacles on them, we can’t help but be concerned.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Locals in this area despair over the leaked report’s dire warning, but hope it might finally force action.

PAUL DAVIS: There has been so much clamour for more than a decade, for something to be done down here. And here we’ve been facing a critical - it’s a crisis, literally a crisis for economic terms and environmental terms and social terms.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The receding water line is causing acid sulphate soils to appear, which can turn water acidic and release toxic heavy metals. The leaked scientific report warns says without sufficient water “some species will not be recoverable. Many of the unique ecological attributes that make this area significant internationally will be irreversibly lost.”
And it warns “the decline in ecological character can only be halted and reversed if substantial freshwater inflows are received within the next six months.”

ARLENE BUCHAN, AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION: These scientists have been crystal clear in their analysis and it’s not very often that you hear this kind of language coming from scientists.
They say that unless we provide fresh water flows to the lower lakes and the Coorong within six months, then all of the characteristics for which those lakes and the Coorong are internationally significant will be irreversibly and irretrievably damaged.

RACHEL CARBONELL: There are implications for Adelaide’s water supply too. The ACF wants the ministerial council to urgently consider a range of rescue options.

ARLENE BUCHAN: There are opportunities for temporarily changing the rules which govern Menindee lakes, which has a whole lot of water in it. Some of the water could be transferred from there downstream to the lower lakes in the Coorong. There are also enormous opportunities to buy water from willing sellers, mostly cotton growers, a number of whom have said that this year they would rather use their water to help the environment than grow a crop of cotton.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The Federal Opposition and the Greens are calling for an emergency response.

GREG HUNT, OPPOSITION ENVIRONMENT SPOKESMAN: We need an urgent ministerial meeting before July 4, we need an urgent declaration of a national emergency and finally we need an urgent plan right now to save the lower lakes.

RACHEL SIEWERT, GREENS SENATOR: We can’t wait until after winter to see if we’ve got enough water, we need to be making the arrangements now.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The Federal Government denies the Government has delayed dealing with the issue.

PENNY WONG, CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER MINISTER: Can I say, there’s been no deferral on dealing with the lower lakes and Coorong. But there is a recognition that this is a difficult problem that is connected to the problems across the Murray-Darling Basin.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Senator Wong says the issue can be addressed out of session before the next ministerial council meeting.

PENNY WONG: I have asked my department for some urgent advice, in addition the Murray-Darling Basin Commission has been actively looking at this issue.

RACHEL CARBONELL: In the meantime, the Federal Government has put $6 million into a stock gap measure, towards pumping water from one lake to another. Rachel Carbonell, Lateline.

This fun and inspirational short can be seen at:

Ganymede the Waterkeeper 

Full Details Here!

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 24/04/2008
Reporter: Rachel Carbonell
For the Video go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s2227116.htm

The CSIRO has discovered toxic heavy metals in the ground of dried up wetlands and waterways in the Murray in South Australia. The metals have the potential to make it into Adelaide’s drinking water supplies and the domestic waters supplies of regional towns.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES: The chronic state of the Murray River system in South Australia has been well documented. Years of drought and over-allocation of the scarce water resources have turned the Murray into something of an environmental catastrophe.
Now there’s a new problem.
The CSIRO has discovered dangerously high levels of heavy metals in some of the dried up wetlands and waterways.
And there’s real concern that the toxic material could find its way into Adelaide’s drinking water, as well as contaminating the water sources of regional towns.

Rachel Carbonell has this special report.
RACHEL CARBONELL, REPORTER: This is near the end of the Murray River in South Australia. The once mighty water way hits these lakes before making its way to the sea.
But the lack of water means they’re drying up - they’re now almost half their normal size.
The stress caused by the lack of water and subsequent salinity have been plaguing the environment and communities here for some time.
The earth exposed by the disappearing water is turning into what scientists call acid sulphate soils.
They can burn your skin and eyes, and turn water acidic.
But now, a much more sinister problem has emerged.
The acid in these soils is causing them to leach heavy metals.

ROB FITZPATRICK, CHIEF RESEARCH SCIENTIST, CSIRO: It actually attacks the soil and it actually also attacks other minerals in the soil and releases very high amounts of aluminium and arsenic, zinc and lead that can be toxic to the environment. And that’s a real problem because we’re not far from the river Murray, it’s only literally 50 metres away from where we standing here right now.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Recent testing has also revealed nickel, cadmium, iron and several other heavy metals.
The acid in the soil is breaking down metals previously trapped in earth when it was underwater
Now when water returns to these dry areas, those metals can and will be released.

ROB FITZPATRICK: A lot of these wetlands are very, very close to off take pipes that feed Adelaide’s water supply and the reservoirs, so where these wetlands occur you can have the potential of these heavy metals and metalloids actually being released to the water that can then be taken up to the water supplies.

RACHEL CARBONELL: It’s an issue which affects the network of hundreds of wetlands flanking the Murray River from Swan Reach down to the sea.
And also the drying shores of Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert.
The CSIRO has produced a draft report on this new and dangerous problem which is yet to be publicly released. The results have surprised and shocked even the scientists who have long predicted this.

ROB FITZPATRICK: We do know that some of the levels of aluminium would be over 100 times higher than normally permitted. And also for example levels of arsenic, would be let’s say, four or five or up to 10 times higher in some of these areas for a short period of time.

RACHEL CARBONELL: The dangers to human health if any of these metals did end up in drinking water supplies, or the food chain are significant.

IAN BRIGHTHOPE, ENVIRONMENTAL MEDICINE EXPERT: If the heavy metals go into water and the water is drunk by humans the heavy metals are taken up and are toxic to every cell in the body. If the heavy metals are taken up by fish and humans eat the fish, then there’s a significant poisoning or toxicity problem that’s going to arise.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Dr Ian Brighthope is an expert in environmental medicine and he says the discovery of these metals is a serious concern.

IAN BRIGHTHOPE: All heavy metals are toxic - there is not a safe level for any heavy metal. And in particular arsenic is toxic and does accumulate over a long period of time, can cause significant problems with the immune system and perhaps even certain cancers.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Peter Doecke owns land at Point Sturt, near Lake Alexandrina.
Much of the food for his large family comes from a big vegetable patch and fruit orchard on the property.
Some of his produce has already been killed off by the poor water quality coming from the lakes, probably because of salt levels.
He says at some point he’ll have to consider whether to keep using the water at all.

PETER DOECKE, RESIDENT POINT STURT: So I’m going to have to bear an additional cost. Not only have I lost the likelihood of producing the vegetables and maybe the fruit trees as well, I’m faced with the extra cost of buying in the water in order to have a healthy family.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Peter Doecke says the water issues have put his family in a difficult situation.

PETER DOECKE: We’re not in a situation where we can just get up and go anywhere because, financially I suppose, is the bottom line.
Some people liken it to a third world type of situation where I mean, you see stories of third world countries where people have trouble getting water, well we’re like that.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Stock has died from scouring diseases associated with magnesium salts around the lakes.

PAUL DAVIS, COORONG LAKES AND MURRAY WATERKEEPER: We’ve got animals that are being affected, reports of animals dying because of the exposure to the water in the vicinity of these soils. So it is a big concern.
The fish communities here are very much under threat as well.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Like so many of the problems here the ultimate solution is more water.
And if it doesn’t come from the sky it has to come from further up the system.
South Australia’s water minister admits the national water plan isn’t going to solve the problem of acid sulfate soils.

KARLENE MAYWALD, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN WATER MINISTER: The national plan won’t solve the problems of the extreme drought that we’re dealing with now. We have a severe lack of water right across the Basin, we have irrigation allocations cut to the bone, we have very, very little water left in our storages and we’re micro managing the river systems at the moment.

RACHEL CARBONELL: And she says for the time being they’re stuck micro managing, until more water does come.

KARLENE MAYWALD: The biggest problem is that there isn’t a lot of water around to be able to get down to the lower lakes and it would take a huge amount of water to make a difference down around the lower lakes.

RACHEL CARBONELL: For the CSIRO, its job is to make sure that if and when that water does come, the acid sulfate soils don’t make the water toxic, with either acidity or heavy metals.
It’s spending millions of dollars mapping the soils and testing for heavy metals.
And as long scientists know where the problems are, they confident they can keep communities safe.
The CSIRO can put lime into some areas to neutralise the acid levels and hold water in wetlands until heavy metals are down to acceptable level.
And in the meantime, everyone else can keep praying for rain.
Rachel Carbonell, Lateline.

Join Professor Hart and the Yarra Riverkeeper Association discussing the key issue of river flows in the Yarra and the impacts of climate change and urban expansion.

Professor Hart is a highly respected thinker on water matters. He is both a key advisor to the Victorian Government and a sought after public speaker. Prof Hart has a close affinity with the Yarra River, given his role as Chair of the Yarra Coordinating Committee, and is a director of Waterkeepers Australia.

Details:
7.00 - 8:30 pm, Monday May 26
Manningham Municipal Offices, Doncaster
Function Room 3, 699 Doncaster Road
(Melways 47 F1).
Light refreshments provided

RSVP by 22 May ph 0448 927 720

The Future of The Yarra River Forum Invitation

Yarra Riverkeeper page