By Viv Forbes
The Australian Snowy 2 hydro scheme plans to use electricity to pump water up hill to get some of that energy back by running the water downhill again.
Some Australian mining companies are planning a dry version of Snowy 2 – a huge brick-powered battery using the force of gravity to drive a generator when solar and wind energy are on strike.
The Minister for Wasting Water, DAVID LITTLEPROUD, must resign.
The Saltbush Club today called for the immediate resignation of Mr. David Littleproud from his position as Minister for Water on the grounds of incompetence in his management of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.
The call was made by Mr Ron Pike, the Saltbush Club Water Adviser with a lifetime of experience and information on Murray Darling Basin water supply, storage and use. Continue reading “Time to Sack the “Minister for No Water””
By Ron Pike
A notice to THE PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA and THE PEOPLE OF CANBERRA.
A delegation of people from waterless western NSW is planning to come to Canberra to demonstrate to the people of the ACT how they are destroying lives and businesses across the Murray-Darling Basin.
“We intend to drain Lake Burley Griffin as an environmental flow down the Murrumbidgee River. Just as the MDB Authority did with the Menindee Lakes.
“Then to add more volume to this environmental flow we will also drain the Cotter dam. Just as the MDB Authority did with Keepit and Burrendong Dams.
“Then when the people of the ACT have no water for basic needs we will try to get you some bottled water.
“You must make-do with bottled water until there is rain in the catchment.
“We are very angry people so do please do not get in our way.”
“The food we eat the water we drink and the power we use for most of our endeavours, are available only because previous generations invested their know-how and money for the future.
It is time this generation did the same.”
– Ron Pike.
Australia is a dry continent – that is a fact of geography and global climate.
However, per head of population, we have abundant fresh water resources in rivers, lakes, dams, soils and underground. But we do not conserve enough of it, and much of what is conserved is wasted by foolish policies. Continue reading “Australia’s Growing Dam Crisis”
by Viv Forbes
The Saltbush Club today claimed that the new Australian federal ministry resembled a giant bureaucracy with 52 ministerial positions selected mainly to look politically correct on sexual ratios, state representations and party factions but with no one charged with solving Eastern Australia’s critical water and electricity needs.
The Executive Director of the Saltbush Club, Mr Viv Forbes, said PM Morrison needs to create a powerful new position with Ministerial power called “The Power and Water Czar”.
“This Czar’s job would be to identify, define and remove all obstacles to quickly building one or more new dams to provide hydro power and water into the Darling River basin and to urgently facilitate more reliable coal-fired power in Eastern Australia. Continue reading “We Need a Power-Water Czar”
By Ron Pike
Background: The incursion of the Federal Government into the State’s constitutional right to the management of rivers and their water; was the result of sensationalist and mostly false claims made during the millennium drought. Emotional sophistry replaced truth and reason as it was claimed that our rivers were dying as the result of extraction by irrigators and lack of flow in the Murray was the cause of hyper salinity in the Coorong. Claims of dying river red gums, drying wetlands and species loss were repeated with graphic but mostly misleading detail.
The Result: Is a Plan that that is costing Governments both revenue and credibility as regional communities across the whole MDB are regressing. The businesses that grow, process and transport our food and fibre are being destroyed by the removal of the vital input of water and the Government inspired racket called the water market. Incredibly, the Plan is badly impacting the environment it is supposed to be assisting and genuine environmental issues are not being addressed. Empty Dams, dry Rivers, communities without drinking water and dead aquatic fauna is the result.
By Viv Forbes
Cubbie Station cops the blame for all of the problems of the Darling River, particularly by green journalists, politicians, and residents of Menindee and Broken Hill. It is blamed for fish kills, lack of water for Broken Hill, irrigators’ problems etc – it is a wonder it is not blamed for the drought.
So I decided to look into the matter, reading media and company reports, studying the geography and topography and having discussions with three people who have on-the-ground and inside experience (but no vested interest) in Cubbie. I have had no contacts whatsoever with the current owners or managers of Cubbie, did not visit the operation and have no shares in their operation.
Cubbie Station, the largest irrigation property in the southern hemisphere, is located near Dirranbandi, in south west Queensland, Australia. It is situated on the almost level flood plains of the Culgoa and Balonne rivers.
It was converted from grazing to cotton farming in 1983.
Continue reading “The Cubbie Scapegoat”
By Ron Pike
Watching the Burdekin Falls Dam with around six metres of water going over the spillway following flood rains in the catchment, we must remember that this is not a rare occurrence.
As far back as 1875 there are records of the Burdekin River rising over 18 metres in just a few hours and repeated reports of 1 to 6 metres of water above the bridge deck at Inkerman. Records of high river flows lasting weeks and months are not uncommon. Following a cyclone in December 1974 the river remained at flood height until April 1975.
These flood flows can exceed 5 mega-litres per second (almost half a million ML every day). This is sufficient to fill our oldest irrigation storage, Burrinjuck Dam, from empty, every two days.
The roar of this cascading water is the roar of waste – wasted water that will be needed in years of little or no flow.
Continue reading “The Roar of Waste”
FLOODPLAINS ARE PLAINS THAT FLOOD – SURELY THAT ISN’T TOO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND.
Dr. John Happs
The recent flooding in Queensland has led to the not unexpected hand-wringing and wailing from the usual doomsayers including those green zealots who spread alarm about climate change, extreme weather and how any flooding in Queensland is the direct result of our trivial emissions of carbon dioxide.
Back in 2011 flooding in Queensland was declared the worst in 40 years with more than 26,000 homes impacted and, tragically, 16 people drowned. Green Party leader Bob Brown claimed that the coal mining industry was responsible and should pay for the Queensland flood damage. Seemingly unaware that major floods have always visited Queensland, Brown claimed that:
It’s the single biggest cause – burning coal – for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now.
by Chris McCormack
News Weekly, February 9, 2019
Was the recent mass fish-kill in the Menindee Lakes along the Darling River the result of drought or poor water policy in the Murray-Darling Basin?
The mainstream media would have us believe that every drought is now the result of man’s burning of fossil fuels causing “dangerous climate change”. Meanwhile, the Greens are blaming a lack of “environmental flows” for the fish-kill. Read more.
