Last month, Prime Minister John Howard reaffirmed his government's commitment to saving the Murray River, and dismissed the findings of a report that says the scientific evidence does not support claims that the River is dying.
The interim report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry -- which included seven Coalition and three ALP members with 1 ALP member dissenting -- was issued after the evidence had been carefully assessed, yet was subsequently strongly condemned by many politicians, scientists and environmental activists.
I looked for the evidence to support the claims of declining water quality, declining native fish stock and dying red gums. Instead, like the committee, I discovered junk science supporting predetermined agendas.
Murray cod was listed as vulnerable to extinction in July last year on the basis there had been a 30 per cent decline over the last 50 years. This newspaper published two stories, "Murray cod on national list" (July 2, 2003) and "For cod's sake, Murray needs stronger flow" (July 5, 2003). But there is no data to support the claims.
The most widely quoted source on native fish status in the Murray-Darling Basin is a 1995-96 NSW Fisheries survey. The report's principal conclusions include the statement that: "A telling indication of the condition of rivers in the Murray region was the fact that, despite intensive fishing with the most efficient types of sampling gear for a total of 220 person-days over a two-year period in 20 randomly chosen Murray-region sites, not a single Murray cod or freshwater catfish was caught".
Most remarkably at the same time, in the same regions, commercial fishermen harvested 26 tonnes of Murray cod.
At the time of the fabricated cod crisis, the CSIRO website was claiming "salt levels are rising in almost all of the (Murray Darling) Basin's rivers". After a challenge this whopping lie was eventually removed from the website of our most respected research institution. The reality is that salinity levels have reduced over the last two decades particularly at the key site of Morgan which is just upstream from the off-takes for Adelaide's water supply.
Despite repeated claims that other water quality indicators are also deteriorating, official statistics indicate that nitrogen, phosphorus and turbidity levels are stable and generally consistent with a healthy river system in the context of inland Australia.
Red gum forests in Victoria and New South Wales are generally healthy. Indeed, the largest forests are recognised as internationally significant wetlands because of their high biodiversity and because they support very large colonies of water birds. Since the early 1990s there have been specific and significant water allocations for these forests. In South Australia the only official survey failed to determine the number of trees that were actually dying as opposed to stressed from the drought. The South Australian government recently allocated water to key forests.
Despite propaganda that dryland salinity and rising water tables are destroying agriculture and the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin, the region celebrated a record wheat harvest last summer. Since 1995, shallow water tables have been falling, not rising, due in part to improved on-farm management practices. The prophecy that dryland and irrigation salinity would spread has proven false.
Much has been made of the Murray's blocked mouth as a symbol of irrigators taking too much water. It is evident, however, from the diary of explorer Charles Sturt that in 1830 -- before water was diverted for irrigation -- the Murray's mouth was then, as it is now, a maze of sandbars.
The official statistics from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission show diversion for irrigation and Adelaide's water supply total 34 per cent of inflows in an average year in the Murray River -- much below the often falsely quoted figure of 80 per cent.
The Snowy Mountains scheme has enabled the river not only to support vibrant, export-orientated industries but maintain flow during extreme drought. Before the scheme and without dams, when the river was in drought, it would run dry and be reduced to a series of stagnant billabongs.
Yet in this newspaper's Saving the Murray series, the river has been described as "Bridled by dams and beggared by progress". With no justification, it has been reported that "the Murray's health has deteriorated in direct proportion to the increasing importance of its resource to the nation's economy". This is an expression of the environmental fundamentalist's false mantra that all technological progress is harmful to the environment.
The successes of the clever initiatives that fixed many of the real environmental problems of the 1970s and 1980s have gone largely unreported.
Activists and government-funded scientists work together to pocket taxpayer's money from the doom and gloom stories. In this election year, with Green preferences potentially determining who wins government, the Prime Minister will not want to confront this subversive and powerful alliance which includes "top" environmental scientists.
It is subversive because it uses the authority of science to justify beliefs that have no evidential basis.
Following the release on April 5th of the federal parliamentary committee's interim report, which was very critical of the Murray River scientists, the scientists publicly reaffirmed their position. They did this not by defending the science, but by appealing to a "scientific" consensus. Consensus is politics. It is not science.
The Prime Minister and the scientists have chosen to ignore the evidence on the health of the Murray. But their ignorance won't make the evidence go away.
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