A team of Adelaide University scientists have come up with a plan to resuscitate the southern Coorong by pumping the concentrated brine, which has killed every living thing in it, out into the ocean.
The brine, which is eight times saltier than seawater, will be gradually replaced with rainfall runoff from the lower reaches of the Coorong, rain, hopefully, and seawater from the northern part of the Coorong.
The good news for a death bed revival and holding pattern for the southern Coorong follows this week’s news that the Federal Government’s water buyback had yielded 10 swimming pools of river water for an outlay of $50 million.
“They didn’t buy water, they bought airspace in dams,” quipped federal Opposition water spokesman John Cobb. The Australian Conservation Foundation’s Anne Buchan, while supportive of the buyback, said the amount would do nothing for the lower lakes and the
Coorong.
The Adelaide uni scientific team has put the idea to the SA Government, which has put its Water,
Land, Biodiversity and Conservation department (WLBC) into furious planning mode to turn the academic modelling into a pragmatic rescue effort. This will involve large diesel pumps to get the water across the Younghusband Peninsula, which is between 1km and 2km wide, and then disperse the brine about 500m offshore into a rip or decent offshore current.
“The lower Coorong (80km of the 140kms) is so salty that even if the total reserves of the Murray were tipped into it, would not make any difference because it would still be too salty for the plants and fish to revive,” Professor David Paton said.
“And that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon because any fresh water available would be used to fill the Lower Lakes which would take 1000 gigalitres. “The Murray Mouth opening has prevented the northern sections of the North Lagoon from becoming hyper marine, but has lead to an accumulation of salt in the remaining 80 per cent of the Coorong,” Paton said.
“Salt accumulation has resulted in salinities greater than ever observed in the Coorong, exceeding the salinity tolerances of most organisms including the highly tolerant hardyhead fish and the water plants which are key food species for a wide variety of water birds.”
And obviously, the lack of freshwater flows over the barrages has also reduced water levels in the South Lagoon. “The proposal to immediately pump the highly saline water out of the South Lagoon provides a mechanism that addresses the key factor preventing any recovery of the system,” Paton said.
“This will allow the system to be capable of supporting some of the key flora and fauna of the system when environmental flows are returned, which is not likely anytime soon, barring a major flood.
“The investment in environmental flows will then be able to trigger a significant ecological response to warrant the expense.” The professor said the government was talking about providing $10 million and wanted an immediate start on the pumping program, which he suggested, could start at the end of next summer.
Paton said the SA Government had access to $610 million from the federal COAG funding over the next 10 years which provides for ecological work as well as providing better pipes and irrigation improvement works.
While the Coorong is a Ramsar-listed wetland, i.e. an internationally recognised ecological wonder, there are current moves afoot to have it re-classified as a Monteux-listed wetland i.e. on the international shame file.
“The cost of doing nothing will mean that the South Lagoon will deteriorate even further and be even more costly to recover,” Paton said. “Delaying a recovery strategy a few years and components of the system include risk of extinction of some species, like the fairy tern, from the region.
“This would bring international condemnation and demonstrate a country that does not abide by its international obligation or its own legislation.” Australia is becoming on the nose for naturalists for allowing the degradation of the Coorong, the destination of bird species from the Russian steppes which make the long flight to the Coorong instinctively – but not any more.
“Continuing to allow this system to collapse will exacerbate international outrage,” Paton says.
The Adelaide University team, led by Professor Paton, comprised Brian Deegan, Daniel Rogers,
Kane Aldridge and Justin Brookes of the Earth and Environmental Science discipline.
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