Publication (Media): Protecting our dwindling waters

Publication Type:	Media Release
Publication Name:	Protecting our dwindling waters

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Bursill, D., Nitschke K., Vertessy, R., Jones, G., Milligan, A. and Cribb, J. (2003) Protecting our dwindling waters - Jan 13 2003, CRCFE, Canberra - Media Release.

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Cooperative Research Centres Association, Inc.

Media Release January 13, 2003

PROTECTING OUR DWINDLING WATERS

As intensifying drought tests Australia's water supplies to the limit, teams of scientists across the continent are battling to devise new ways to save ailing rivers, better allocate scarce resources and shield water quality.

The drought is likely to bring the issue of national water quality into sharp focus, warns Professor Don Bursill, CEO of the CRC for Water Quality and Treatment.

Prolonged drought will raise the threat to drinking water from toxic blue-green algae, increased salinity in some waters, may cause cases of smelly, foul-tasting or stained water as dam levels sink, and could increase risks to human health in remote areas.

"Drinking water suppliers are working hard this summer to make sure our water is safe to drink," says Prof. Bursill.

The good news is that a new risk assessment system being developed by the CRC will make it even easier for Australia's drinking water suppliers to provide safe water.

The 12-stage risk assessment package, due to be adopted in 2003, is designed to help water managers identify and monitor all possible risks at every step in the process from catchment to dam, pipeline, treatment plant, to consumer, Prof. Bursill says.

The intensity of debate over competing uses for Australia's increasingly slender water supplies will escalate as the drought deepens, predicts Professor Rob Vertessy, Director of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology.

"We've already seen angry reactions in some places where farmers didn't get their full allocations, but still had to pay for them," he says.

"The ambition of governments to revegetate the landscape with trees will only exacerbate the water shortage problem unless we trade water out of irrigation areas. The volume of water likely to be lost following tree planting in the Murray Darling Basin over the next twenty years is of a similar magnitude to that which we are trying to claw back for environmental flows in the Murray. Tree planting will bring many environmental and economic benefits, but only if we factor their enhanced water usage into our catchment planning and reduce allocation of river flows to users."

Balancing competing demands for water lies at the heart of the national water challenge, Prof. Vertessy says. To help with the water resource planning challenge the CRC is developing modelling tools to assist in the implementation of integrated catchment management.

The CRC for Freshwater Ecology is developing a River Recovery Plan to help protect Australia's inland rivers, creeks and wetlands following the drought.

"In a healthy Australian river, drought is part of the natural cycle. Drying out is important to our wetlands and rivers. However, when they are stressed due to over-removal of water and have lost their natural resilience it may be much harder for them to recover," says CRC CEO Prof. Gary Jones.

To avoid inflicting further - possibly permanent - harm on the nation's waterways, the CRC has three urgent pieces of advice:
* Protect water holes and billabongs, which are the refuges river life retreats to in dry times. Minimise water pumping from them
* Don't catch the big fish or kill wildlife which retreat to deep waterholes. They are the breeders which will be needed to replenish the stock after the drought breaks.
* Restrict livestock access to waterholes and wetlands, to avoid pollution and damaging plants and habitat.

Prof. Jones says the drought brings with it a major risk of toxic blue-green algal blooms like the 1000km event on the Darling River, and fish kills as water levels fall and oxygen becomes depleted.

"When the drought breaks, and there are big flows or floods, there may also be a pulse of dirty, poor quality water - and drinking water managers need to be on alert to manage this," he adds.

More information:

Prof Don Bursill, CRC for Water Quality & Treatment 08 8259 0351
Don.Bursill@sawater.com.au
Katrina Nitschke, CRC for Water Quality & Treatment 08 8259 0211

Prof Rob Vertessy, CRC for Catchment Hydrology 02 6246 5746/02 6257 3040
Rob.Vertessy@csiro.au 0419 623 552

Prof Gary Jones, CRC for Freshwater Ecology 02 6201 5168
gjones@enterprise.canberra.edu.au
Ann Milligan, CRC for Freshwater Ecology 02 6201 5371

Julian Cribb, CRCA Media 0418 639 245

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