Hearing Peter Beattie resurrect the idea, first proposed 70 years ago, of diverting rivers in Queensland's north to augment flows in the Murray Darling river system took me back to my yoof in the late 60s. Then, the idea of using large engineering projects to 'tame nature' were common.
The nearly completed Snowy Mountains hydro project was the inspiration for other, sometimes wacky, schemes being proposed. One of the more silly ones was a proposal to use an atomic explosion to create an artificial harbour in the country's north-west. Madness!
The environment was seen as a limitless resource that could be altered at will for human advantage.
We now know that these grandiose schemes often result in unintended environmental consequences. It could be land degradation due to salination, the destruction of animal habitat, or accelerating climate change due to the creation of greenhouse gasses during construction and operation. It's fair to say that all these projects have an environmental downside.
As a engineer, I'm not against sensible engineering projects, as long as a favourable cost / benefit ratio can be demonstrated. I suspect that Beattie's proposals would have been built by now if the benefit was there.
Howards plan covers only three states,and depends on regular rainfall to work. Beatties plan covers four states, has a regular water supply, and can be turned off in times of plenty.
If the benefit outweighs the cost by a hefty margin, then I'm all for it. But all costs need to be weighed.
How much energy is needed to get the water over the mountains between the rivers? What effect will the reduced coastal river flow have on the river and estuary environment?
It's not much use doing this if a large amount of water evaporates before it gets to the users, who are many hundreds of kilometers downstream.
Sounds like a 'have your cake and eat it' option to me.
I remember a flood in northern Victoria years ago and someone had a proposal to build a drain to get rid of the water - ummmmm, if the Murray River can't get it away fast enough I imagine the drain would have to be quite large?
I remember a flood in northern Victoria years ago and someone had a proposal to build a drain to get rid of the water - ummmmm, if the Murray River can't get it away fast enough I imagine the drain would have to be quite large?