While governments dither about the subject of water, especially conservation of the precious resource, Griffith City Council is working towards water infrastructure schemes that may increase our national water supply. The word "national" is crucial for any worthwhile discussion and future planning of dams, reservoirs, weirs, pipelines, irrigation schemes - anything to do with water. GCC formed a Build More Dams Action Group under the chairmanship of former mayor, Dino Zappacosta. While its primary aim now is to make more water available to farmers and communities along the Murrumbidgee Valley the long term possibilities are endless
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The group has written to all councils west of the Great Dividing Range to interest them in reviving a 1984 scheme to divert tributaries of the Clarence River to the Murray Darling Basin; a scheme devised by David Coffey, a consulting engineer, to capture a quarter of the water that now runs out of the Clarence into the sea and divert it through the range into the Darling River.
The water diverted would be equivalent, on current figures, to one full Burrinjuck Dam per annum. It would, according to Coffey and the Griffith-based group, take "significant pressure" off the Murrumbidgee River system alone not to mention helping to resolve the reduced water allocations under the Murray Darling Basin Authority to communities and farmers.
Cr Zappacosta said the benefit to all communities along the Darling and Murray rivers system would be immense. The GCC group wants all three tiers of government to support the cause.
As media personality, Sam Kekovich might have said: "You know it makes sense"; but, the environmentalists are already knocking the Clarence scheme. The Greens and environmentalists are already playing out the "not in our backyard" theme. Don't these people understand this is about Australia's future not about groups of individuals unable or unwilling to understand that water is the commodity this country needs more than any other?
It would, on the other hand, be wrong to suggest these opponents have not done good things in saving world heritage listed sites like the Lemonthyme Valley, the Franklin and the Daintree (and many others) but somewhere along the line, the promotion of water conservation for the overall benefit of the nation's food production and export trade deserves their tolerance, compromise and, for a change, introspection.
A fortnight ago Bowen Business Chairman, Bruce Hedditch wrote: "The most pressing issue confronting our rural areas is water and while the previous Federal Government committed funds for further studies of the Urannah and Burdekin Dams we cannot afford for these important infrastructure programs to be stifled by bureaucracy and the absurd claims of environmental groups".
Bob Hawke, long before he became PM, told a group of journalists (of which I was one) about the uselessness of stand-offs and name calling from a distance in industrial matters. "Get to the table, nut the problems out and sort it," he said.
He was right then and he is today. His formula should be used by PM, Malcolm Turnbull, to resolve the water crisis. The PM could start by getting Anne Ruston, the South Australian senator from Renmark on the Murray, who is Assistant Minister for Water and Agriculture to take charge of re-building the nation's water program without another day's delay.
