If there's only enough water in the system to meet the critical human needs, what happened to the other 50% of carryover water that myself and other riverland growers puchased last financial year. Did it just vanish out of the system ?

Has anyone ever stopped to think that the storage levels of the dams upstream along the Murray are to blame for no water in the lakes?? Before there was the storage upstream this was never an issue and because years ago (before water was a major issue) the storage levels in the upstream dams were always near full, and no water was allocated to the lakes. Just because the lakes are at the end of an important river system both ecologically and culturally it doesn't make them any less important.

There's no water because it is all taken out upstream from all the rivers and their tributories.

The only real answer is to let nature take its course. Let all the rivers run, open the barrages at Goolwa, let the river and sea flush out the lakes and lower reaches and believe me nature will correct itself.

It has for 100s of 1,000s of years since the rivers first ran.

If there is no rain in the catchment area there will be no water for the lakes.

Let's bite the bullet, constuct the weir below Wellington and open the barrages (at the Lower Lakes, SA).

This can be a short-term policy and protects the fresh water for use for human needs, plus the horticulture/farming industry above Wellington and beyond.

The Rudd/Wong piping water plans from Wellington/Tailem Bend can then be implemented as soon as possible for viticulture/farming enterprises around the Lakes and environs.

At the present time, there are to many academics with different views which are not helping to solve the problems.

Sorry to disagree with you AngusB, but there is a better way.

False Hope & Denial, To Whom It May Concern:

To whom may be interested:

Why is it we in SA just want to continually blame others for the situation we often find ourselves in?

We won the contest with Victoria on the air-warfare destroyer contract,

We occasionally win the AFL contest

We produce the best wines in the country

We even sleep in for half hour more than the Eastern states.

Yes we do have a water shortage problem,

and yes we are running hard to do a catch up !

or are we really running hard too little too late?

Yes there were some storms in the upper Darling river catchments from Dec to March last summer and yes Menindee lakes went from 26 gigs to 603gigs by end of April. SA actually got a bonus out of that event and was able to store some water that would have evaporated in Lake Menindee if it had tried to go past the 640gig stage. This is where responsible management gets overlooked by the media. (or they just don’t know).

Yes there were some diversions by communities at the top end of the system, but they had not seen water for 3 and in some cases 5 to 6 years.

How much went past their pumps and how much made it to the Murray? There are some pretty reliable numbers on record, too much to quote here, but cast your mind back to the Catalyst & Land Line programs of late April 2008 and try to remember the amount of water that crossed the border from Queensland to NSW and then view the Paroo and Warrego systems outflows and where that water ended up.

Almost 3,000gigs crossed the border, nothing from the Paroo even reaching the Darling and about 10% of the Warrego flow reaching Menindee lakes.

Most of the Water that reached the Lakes originated out of northern NSW and south eastern Queensland. Approx just over 400 gigs, and this is water that made it past the pumps we are accusing of taking it all.

Has anyone visited these sites to view what is taken is measured at the point of extraction, based on their current license laws, and any delivery or evaporation losses are borne by the customer.

Much more can be said and quoted, but at the end of the day unless we are prepared to change how we manage our own system to avoid these major losses no one in the North or East are going to feel sorry for the plight that SA finds itself in.

Ray Najar General Manager – Murray Darling Association August 7, 2008