The Healthy Rivers, Healthy Communities conference is featuring presentations of the latest floodplain management science and discussion about policy directions for floodplain management in the Murray-Darling Basin and Lake Eyre Basin.
Pop Petersen, from Brenda Station downstream of Cubbie Station on the NSW Qld border, outlined the damage that has been done to the floodplain by diverting water.
“We have lost 30pc grazing capacity for sheep and 4pc cattle reduction in carrying capacity on Brenda Station.
“The 1943–1947 drought was much worse than the current drought yet the river still flowed.
“In the 1943-47 drough, the annual average rainfall was 173 millimetres, however, the 2002-07 droughts had an annual average of 307mm.”
Mr Petersen said that in 2005 there were two stock and domestic water releases that didn’t reach the end of the system (the junction of the Darling River).
“Stock and domestic users downstream were carting water while water was being stored upstream.”
Living on Brenda Station for the past 27 years, Mr Petersen said he believed water was over-allocated by at least 50pc
“You don’t have to be a scientist to see that the floodplain of the Culgoa Balonne System is in serious decline," he said.
“Governments need to abolish the taking of overland flow, and to place annual volumetric caps on all water harvesting.”
Chairman of the Condamine-Balonne Water Users Association, Ed Fessey, “Bullabalalie”, Weilmoringle, said there was a lack of equity in the granting of licences that had created division in rural communities.
“The two-tiered system of water resource plans is complicated and has done much damage to people and communities downstream,” he said.
“The transferral of wealth upstream as a result of the issuing of licences has contributed fiercely to this division.”
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