South Australia to Buy ‘Critical Needs’ Water
December 8th, 2008IL suggested this story and wrote:
Uh… no water. Just a bit of an emergency, no? Just got back from there and it is dry, dry, dry. And to top it off, most of the populace seem oblivious. I mean they know it doesn’t rain much and they’re in the driest state in Aust (I think it is, anyway), but they think things will be okay – ‘they’ll’ solve the problem as usual. They have a very, very closed media there. Very protective. The SA media is still gearing the subjects up for a new property boom based on some phantom “imminent” mining boom! The radio and TV are awash with home loan and property developers’ tantalizing offers and assurances that everyone must ‘get in now’. The rest of Australia knows that the mining sector is looking very shaky indeed ATM. And no water = no property value at all, I would think, let alone an increase!
I wonder when the water tanker ship plan will be put into action?
Via: Adelaide Now:
FOR the first time in its history, South Australia will have to buy water to guarantee supplies for critical human needs next year.
The move reveals the increasing severity of the nation’s water crisis at the end of the Murray River.
Necessary water supplies to Adelaide and towns across the state are at this stage not secured from July next year, which has forced the Rann Government on to the open water market.
It has already bought 30 gigalitres from water resources shared with NSW and Victoria and admitted yesterday it had spent tens of millions of dollars to bolster the state’s supplies.
Authorities must have 201gigalitres in reserve to ensure the water needs of the nation’s fifth-largest city and the rest of the state are able to be met.
The state’s Water Security Minister, Karlene Maywald, admitted yesterday that the lack of rainfall and dramatic reduction of inflows into the Murray River had meant the state could not accumulate its critical water needs without buying water from its neighbours.
Just over a year ago, water expert Professor Mike Young warned in The Australian that Adelaide could run dry this summer.
He said yesterday the Government’s move into the water market confirmed the dire situation the city and the state’s Riverland food bowl faced in the coming year.
State Treasurer Kevin Foley and Ms Maywald revealed the state’s spending on water for critical human needs while announcing domestic water prices would increase by 20 per cent from July next year.
“We have to accept that we are in a most extraordinary, critical period of our state’s history where it’s simply not raining,” Mr Foley said.
“And not raining not just in South Australia but in the critical catchment areas.”
Inflows into the Murray River remain at critically low levels, despite above average rainfall across the Murray-Darling Basin in November.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission reports that inflow into the Murray last month was 140 gigalitres, just 18 per cent of the long-term average of 780gigalitres. November was the 38th consecutive month of below-average inflows. Under the River Murray dry flow contingency plans, the first priority is given to critical human needs.
Ms Maywald said sufficient water for human needs had been set aside for South Australia this financial year, but not enough had yet been accumulated for 2009-10.
“At this stage there has not been sufficient rainfall for us to accumulate the entire 201 gigalitres from (rainfall) improvements in the (Murray-Darling) system,” she said.
“So we’ve made a decision to go into the market and purchase water on the temporary market.”
