River health plan: Call for infrastructure works at Murray mouth

A LOBBY group is calling for infrastructure works to occur at the Murray River mouth to reduce the amount of water needed to be diverted from communities to ensure the Murray-Darling Basin’s health.

Mr Cirillo has united with Barham resident Neil Eagle, Kerang’s Ken Trewin, National Civic Council vice president Pat Byrne and former Victorian Farmers Federation Water Committee chairman John O’Brien to form Defend Australia’s Food Security – an online campaign that aims to provide farmers with a means to lobby their politicians using the internet, and expose government policies that threaten agriculture and the nation’s food security.The group, which includes Sunraysia grape grower Vince Cirillo, has vowed to support five engineering projects that would mitigate the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s need to reclaim 2750GL of water annually for the environmental.

“We are endeavouring to encourage upper state ministers and governments to stand firm and not go along with this (supporting the plan),” campaign spokesperson Mr Eagle said.

“We continue to ask how the basin plan can ask the upper states (Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria) to reconfigure their irrigation infrastructure without asking the southern-most state (South Australia) to act on the issue.

“Unless the future management of the Lower Lakes is brought into the plan, there should not be a plan.”

Some major projects the group supports include the automation of barrage gates at Goolwa to allow natural flows between Lake Alexandrina and the Southern Ocean, dredging the channel between Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert to increase fresh flows into Lake Albert, and building a pipeline or trench from Lake Albert to the Coorong to help drain saline water from Lake Albert.

It is also suggested that freshwater flows from southeast South Australia are redirected into the Coorong system.

The projects have received support from the South Australian Government, local communities around Lakes Alexandrina, Albert and the Coorong, and the authority.Another project the three men support is the construction of a new weir, known as Lock Zero, at the bottom of the Murray River, north of the Lower Lakes.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Thursday's Sunraysia Daily 11/10/2012.