Agribusinesses in huge water scam

Peter Mac

Many farmers and graziers of today are still battling the 
droughts as did Henry Lawson's Andy more than 100 years 
ago. But, now they are also up against the giant agribusinesses 
that consume a huge proportion of the nation's river waters.

"Oh may the showers in torrents fall, And all the tanks run over, 
And may the grass grow green and tall, In pathways of the drover, 
And may good angels send the rain On desert stretches sandy, And 
when the summer comes again God grant it brings us Andy.
— from Our Andy's gone with cattle Henry Lawson, 1888

Farmers in the northern NSW Jemalong irrigation district have 
protested that "translucent" water recently released from major 
dams for environmental reasons should have been diverted for 
their use, in order to save their crops and grazing animals, 
which are in danger of dying of thirst in huge numbers.

However, Don Martin, the Central West regional manager for the 
NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, 
has pointed out that even if the translucent water had not been 
released, the farmers wouldn't have received it because the major 
irrigators would have got to it first.

Australia is the driest continent, and the driest country, on 
earth. Once lushly vegetated, it has been drying out ever since 
it split away from the megacontinent Gondwanaland millions of 
years ago. As the ABC's Wild Australia program pointed out 
recently, the nation's biggest river system, the Murray Darling 
is for most of its length no wider than a major highway, even in 
flood periods.

The question of how water is stored and used is therefore very 
much a matter of life and death for the nation and its 
prosperity. Australia's most voracious consumers of this, our 
most precious natural asset, are the major irrigators, the huge 
agribusiness companies that grow "inundation crops" such as rice 
and cotton.

The cotton growing properties of northern NSW and south-west 
Queensland have long been the subject of bitter disputes 
concerning their huge water consumption and their abundant use of 
highly toxic insecticides.

Action by the environmental organisation Australian Network 
Environment Watch/People Affected by Chemicals (ANEWPAC) revealed 
secret deals between the NSW and Queensland governments and 
cotton growers to provide vast amounts of river water. The group 
also revealed that the National Occupational Health and Safety 
Commission was chaired by the head of the Australian division of 
multinational giant Dupont Chemicals.

South-west and central Queensland has recently experienced 
torrential rains. In previous years, an equivalent level of rain 
would have resulted in authorities releasing huge amounts of 
water from dam storage, which in turn would have inundated a 
million hectares, benefiting some 200 northern NSW farming and 
grazing properties. 

Although Queensland water Resources released some 480,000 
megalitres in January, only 25 percent of that flow has reached 
the border. Border properties would previously have been flooded, 
but now there hasn't been sufficient flow to break the Culgoa 
River banks, and it is estimated that only 10 percent will 
eventually flow from the Culgoa River into the Darling. 

The reason is that within the last ten years, irrigation 
properties on the lower Ballone river system north of the border 
have built dams and water storage systems capable of retaining 
1.2 million megalitres, or twice the water capacity of Sydney 
Harbour. Cubbie Station, just near the NSW border, is the biggest 
of these water guzzlers, with a capacity of about 38 percent of 
the total.

The Culgoa-Ballone Minor Water Users Association has pointed out 
that the current licensing regulations only stipulated a 
"commence to pump" water height, and a pump size, but did not 
actually limit the amount that irrigators could take from the 
rivers.

Rory Treweeke, the Association's chairman, commented: "The 
storage on the lower Ballone flood plain is far more than the 
average flow of the system, yet there's no volumetric limit." He 
also noted with bitterness that water was diverted to Cubbie 
Station in channels that were actually bigger than the river 
canal itself.

Conservationists have long argued that the federal government 
should acquire Cubbie Station, if necessary by compulsory means, 
in order to save the downstream properties from dying of thirst. 
Naturally, the Cubbie Station owners have not been impressed with 
such proposals. And now, like the cigarette companies of recent 
decades, they are arguing that there is insufficient scientific 
information to warrant any voluntary restrictions on their 
business activities. 

And of course they are supported by the two major political 
parties. Like other sections of the NSW population, many small 
farmers in the state's northern regions are fast coming to the 
conclusion that they must dump their traditional political 
allegiances in order to avoid being trodden underfoot by the 
multinational monsters.