I can't understand how the Rudd govt is going to put water back into the Murray Darling, no matter how much money they spend - the water in the quantities they require is quite simply not there.

When prices for fruit & veges skyrocket will those overactive environmentalists realise that farmers actually do something good with irrigation water and not the vandals they are made out to be?

Is it now time to look at the national picture of water harvesting, the bush is dying in all facets, turn those costal rivers that flow enormous amounts out to sea and bring the water back to revitalise regional Australia.

"We are Australian too".

With no production, fuel and food prices ramping upwards, the options are becoming obvious that we should all move to the coast; at least we will have plenty of company.

We always have had enough water for what is necessary.

The problem lies with too many people relying on the water available.

If the Federal government is prepared to spend $10,000,000,000 fixing this problem, pay the irrigators $10,000 per acre to decommission their irrigation farms, and use those farms as watersheds to return water back into the river system.

Dead right Rusty.

Well-intentioned but ill-informed people get far too much air time & very little rebuttal by farmers or country people.

I reckon it may just be a good thing for the price of agricultural produce to double or quadruple.

The farmers won't see the extra money, but at least the average consumer might learn a little appreciation for the role that farmers play in their daily lives.

At present, the lack of understanding & the outright hostility of many consumers indicates the contempt in which they hold farmers & country people generally.

Mr Rudd's promises of fixing the rivers hinge on one thing alone & that is making it rain.

Mr Hawke did it back in 1983 just after he came to power & if Mr Rudd can do it now he will justifiably be regarded as a great man.

A grain ethanol industry needs a secure grain supply.

How can we comtemplate the E10 mandate in NSW based on grain ethanol with such variable climatic conditions?

I had a dream last night that they were laying a pipe to put water into the Murray River, suddenly the fairy godmother flew over me and told me that's not going to happen because the doom and gloom scare tactics are a scam to drive all the current farmers out of the river.

Then after all the family farms have sold, the cloud seeded rainfall will flood the system, but then it will be too late for anyone to get back into business because all the water will then be owned by the Tooth Fairy.

Then the fairy godmother said to the tooth fairy with a grin, good luck getting youngsters to move out in the middle of nowhere to work on your tooth fairy farms.

Then the Tooth Fairy ate 20 lbs of fizz wizz and told me flouride is good for my teeth, and coal is yummy in my tummy, and tried to take over humpty dumpty's country in a day, but that didn't go as expected.

Then I woke up and read this article and wondered, imagine if our dreams were actually true.

Lucky for all of us they are just dreams.

Your paper reported on the Keith Potts research into aerosol/smoke plumes being the major cause of El Nino.

It made sense and was presented to Federal Parliament about 6 weeks ago but I haven't read anything about it since.

The natural volcanic plumes can't be stopped but maybe with some help from China, who are going through a drought with their wheat crop (your paper 26th March) the man made plumes could be stopped... just maybe.

Maybe you could print the story again and highlight the website where it can be found.

I can see nothing in BOM's reports about a return to El Nino.

You need to do more research as the BOM has the return percentage of an El Nino at about the same (25%) as it would in any given year.

The most likely scenario is neutral conditions.

Pls don't cause unneeded concern to farmers with your lack of El Nino knowledge.

Seems like the Murray Basin is made of green cheese - it takes about as much imagination to come up with that answer as it is never going to rain again.

When you educate a fool, you have a fool with an education, not a wise man.

Why give credence to an educated fool's imagination?

Farmers have taken too much out for too long.

Livestock industries are the most damaging in the world and consume massive water resources.

Most of it is exported, supporting our economy!

We can't have economic growth on dwindling resources.

Governments should find alternative sources for our GDP and extend our national parks to protect much more of the Murray Darling area.