IS THE ANSWER TO ALL OUR WOES GATHERING
DUST?
With
the state government asking for Ideas from the public, and our water supply and
river system suffering the stress of decades of inaction, millions wasted on
talk fests and spin, could all our answers lay in the past?
Is
there an answer to secure our water needs, cleanse our might river, lift our
food production and address other long-term issues like power production and
unemployment rates?
Once
again, the Clarence River is in flood at Grafton, NSW, but if the Clarence
River Scheme, which has been on the books since at least the early 1920s had
been built, that water would now be on its way down the Darling River, to save
the parched towns, farms and lakes of South Australia.
The
scheme would divert the waters of the upper Clarence and Nymboida Rivers over
the Great Dividing Range into the Dumaresq River, and on into the Macintyre,
Barwon, and Darling Rivers, before flowing into the Murray River near Mildura,
and on down to South Australia. Additionally, a nearby Macleay River project
would divert water into the Gwydir River and on into the Barwon and Darling
Rivers.
Emeritus
Professor Lance Endersbee designed the Clarence Scheme as a pump storage
scheme, which can take advantage of surplus off-peak electricity to pump water
over the range and into storage dams, which will then produce hydroelectricity
from an annual flow of water comparable to that of the Snowy Mountains
diversion.
(Professor
Endersbee was Dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monash University,
at the end of a long career, which included distinguished work on the Snowy
Mountains Scheme, Tasmania’s hydro scheme, and hydroelectric schemes in
Southeast Asia.)
He
told a national conference in 1997, “There is the catchments of the Clarence
River and it is a wonderful little cup in there, and very steep country, high
rainfall and one of the highest rainfall areas in Australia, and they get the
summer rains down from the monsoons coming down and they get the winter rains
as well.
“So
there is a lot of rainfall there and it all flows out into the sea, and if you
have been to Grafton, you know how wide the Clarence River is at Grafton. It’s
a big river” he said.
He
went further to say“ I have designed a scheme for the diversion of the Clarence
into the Darling.
Now there is a lot of algae in the Darling. This would flush
all the algae out of the Darling.”
Most
importantly, the Clarence River diversion would go a long way to saving the
Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s food bowl, which produces 40 per cent of the
national agricultural output, and comprises 75 per cent of Australia’s
irrigated land, which to date has been slowly eroded.
Imagine
the opportunity for Australia to again lead the world rather than the usual
between election quick fixes we have become accustomed to.
The wasted millions
on the past decades on talk fests, combined with the promise of 10 Billion by
the federal government would be more than enough to ensure our rivers health
and secure the water we need to step forward into the next century.
We
must also consider the side effects of such a scheme, huge employment across
many states, the reduction of reliance on imported food stocks via securing the
future of our food bowl producers, not to mention the National pride created by
such a grand scale project.
Sometimes
old fashioned Ideas should not be left in the past, not only would several
states of Australia overcome power, water, employment and environmental issues
associated with such grand ideals, but our government could restore the peoples
faith in their leadership.
All
we need for success is long term vision further than the next election and a
governing body with the balls to do so.
Mark
M Aldridge
INDEPENDENT
Candidate