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Submission to the Snowy Water Inquiry Saving the Throwaway River "The Snowy Catchment is heritage country in the full sense of that term, and the river should be the jewel in the crown." Professor George Seddon
Saving the Throwaway River George Seddon is a Professor Emeritus (Environmental Science) of the University of Melbourne and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Western Australia. He was born in Victoria in 1927, graduated with first Class Honours in English and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and later studied Science at the University of Western Australia, followed by a Master of Science and Ph.D (in Geology) at the University of Minnesota. He held the Chair of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of New South Wales, and later became Director of the Centre for Environmental Studies at the University of Melbourne, first as Professor of Environmental Science and then as Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Planning. He helped to set up a program in environmental planning at the University of Venice over several years, and has taught at Harvard and elsewhere overseas. Seddon has written many journal articles and books, of which the best known are Swan River Landscapes, 1970; Sense of Place, 1972; A City and its Setting, 1988; Searching for the Snowy, 1994, and Swan Song, 1996. Landprints, his latest, was published by Cambridge University Press in August 1997, and is now being reprinted as a paperback. He has won many awards, including three Robin Boyd Environmental Awards, the Eureka Prize (for science book of the year) from the Australian Museum in 1995, for the Snowy book, which also won the Premier's Award (WA) for a critical study. He was presented with the Mawson Medal for his contributions to geology from the Academy of Science in 1996. He was profiled by Robyn Williams (ABC) as one of 'Fifteen of the planet's best friends and fiercest advocates; Environmental Heroes' in Panorama, June 1997. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and an honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian Planning Institute and the Australian Academy of Landscape Architecture. Contents Impacts on the Snowy Catchment
Conclusions for the Snowy Catchment
The prime focus of this submission is the Snowy country (river, tributaries and catchment) — in the words of the Commission: one of Australia’s three greatest icons — and to support the contention that a modest twenty five per cent of the Snowy’s natural flow should be released, and the recommendations of the environmental flow assessment carried out for the Snowy Genoa Catchment Management Committee in February 1996, including the decommissioning of the Cobbin Creek and Mowamba River aqueducts, to return some flow to the Beloka Gorge, and reintroduce well-oxygenated water to the Monaro leg of the Snowy. This inquiry thus gives the opportunity to recognise a great environmental wrong, perpetrated, with little thought to the consequences, some forty years ago. The Commissioner also invites Australians to ‘step back from established positions’ and welcomes fresh perspectives. A second focus of concern, therefore, is to take the opportunity to review the irrigation culture. It is customary in most bureaucratic rhetoric to describe the irrigation experiment along the Murray-Murrumbidgee as obviously self-justifying, but there is an equally long history of academic and professional analysis that emphasises the costs, both environmental and economic, ranging from Davidson (1969) Australia: Wet or Dry, still one of the most thoughtful analyses of the irrigation culture, to Ghassemi et al. (1995), which takes a global perspective. There has also been a plethora of studies by CSIRO, for the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council, and so on. There is plenty of bad news. Given that the livelihood of whole communities is at stake, it is hard to change direction and to admit that much current land-use is unsustainable, but it has to be recognised, and some communities are equally at risk under the status quo. Our experience of this continent is so brief that land use practices must be seen as experimental. It is often said that Australia is the driest inhabited continent and that efficiency of water use is critical (e.g., Issues, p.4). Irrigation currently accounts for 90% of annual water use in the Murray-Darling basin (Australian Water Resources Council 1987), of which 50% is used for pasture irrigation and less than 10% for high value horticulture. 'Both the States and the Commonwealth have subsidised Murray-Darling irrigation in the past to achieve regional development goals' (Ghassemi et al., 1995, p. 197), but often with a political agenda, and driven by the 'Let the desert bloom' obsession. Currently the subsidy towards operational costs alone is of the order of $300 million annually; the user pays about half the operational costs. Victoria plans to move towards a 'user pays' principle, from $12.10 per 1,000m3 per year rising at the rate of inflation plus 2% per year towards the full cost of $22.50 at 1989 value (op. cit., p.197). The operational subsidies take no account of the high infrastructure costs, nor of the actual and potential cost of remedial work (e.g., some $900 million projected by the Victorian government over the next thirty years). If water were more realistically priced, its use would be more efficient; we would not be turning gold into water, and this should more than compensate for the proposed reduction in 'take' from the Snowy. To conclude: there are many hidden costs that should appear in the irrigation balance sheet: these include the cross-subsidy of ‘free’ water from the Snowy Catchment and its people, the cross-subsidy from metropolitan power consumers to the irrigators, the infrastructure, including the dams, not costed against the irrigators, the subsidy of labour from state agencies, especially the regulating agencies, and the rapidly mounting potential costs of remedial works to counter salinity. 3. Regarding hydro-electricity This submission does not, however, in any way question the utility of hydro-electric power generation, which plays a key role in meeting peak demand, and gives the system a necessary flexibility; the high quality of the engineering achievement is also recognised. 4. Impacts on the Snowy Catchment The Snowy above Jindabyne has been chopped into three segments. The first, from the source near Rawsons Pass to the first impoundment at Guthega is all that an alpine-subalpine river should be: cold, clear, fast-flowing, flanked with tussock grassland, fern and heath. The alpine mintbush (Prostanthera cuneata) perfumes the air. In some ways the river is in better health than it was before the Scheme, in that summer grazing has long been excluded, erosion has slowly been repaired, and trampling around the glacial lakes, Blue Lake and Club Lake, and along the stream banks is restricted to hikers. Movement of fish and other aquatic organisms is impeded by Guthega, and the next sections from Guthega to Island Bend is also modified by changes in stream velocity, first by release, and then by the second dam. If Guthega were taken out, at relatively modest cost in power generation terms, there would again be a natural alpine stream from source to Island Bend, running through one of the most rewarding parts of the National Park. The Murray, our other alpine river, is not accessible in the same way as the Snowy, because of topography, Lady Northcote's Canyon and so on. It is worth reflecting that Australia's situation is unique. The upper Snowy is the only Alpine river on offer. Every other continent has an abundant choice of such experiences. Below Island Bend, the bed is almost dry before it begins to flow again with water from the tributaries such as the Gungahlin River — and it then becomes an unnatural lake at Jindabyne. 4.2.1 Above the Delegate River The effective headwaters of the current river lie in the Kybean Range and the Errinundra Plateau in East Gippsland; the Snowy begins to flow, albeit sluggishly, after the confluence of the Mclaughlin and the Quidong rivers. From Merretts Pool to the Quidong, the ‘Snowy’ is often a series of stagnant pools, and there are places where it is easy to step across it. In drought years, it very nearly dries up. The ecological consequences are crude: shrub invasion of the bed, especially by willows, and changes to the channel are the most obvious. Some of the historic fords, still marked on maps, are now impassable, not because of the ‘river’ but because the approaches and much of the bed itself are heavily infested with shrubs and small trees (the ford upstream of the Quidong is a case in point). This reduces 4-wheel drive mobility around the river, and although the fords could be bull-dozed regularly, this is a poor replacement of natural processes. The water in this reach is overheated in summer, poorly oxygenated and prone to algal infestation. It has grossly reduced habitat value. Economically and socially the local population has a substantially reduced resource, for irrigation and stock watering to swimming and recreational use. Visually, it is a degraded landscape, and this is a loss of actual and potential tourist and visitor amenity. To what extent these problems can be reduced by increased stream flow requires an experimental approach and an adequately funded monitoring program. Clearly, restoration of full flow is not an option, so that a return to the pre-1949 hydrology and ecology is not possible either. A steady flow in summer will reduce some problems, and a release or releases that mimic the old periodic snow-melt flushes should help to ‘clean’ the river bed, but this will need a range of supplementary catchment management practices, including the physical removal of vegetation in the stream bed and restoration of the banks with indigenous vegetation — together with generally recognised good catchment management practices, controlling top-soil loss, sedimentation and eutrophication. The Snowy-Genoa Catchment Management Committee is already committed to such work. It is worth noting that the Monaro was settled by pastoralists well before the irrigation settlements along the Murray and Murrumbidgee. A number of Monaro properties are now managed by third generation families, whose pioneer grandparents would hardly have settled without the availability of water. Much of the Monaro is in rain shadow. In the last few decades, stock water has become easier with the construction of farm dams, but in the last century, the Snowy was always the reliable water source in times of need. That water was taken from the local community. Leo Barry of Moonbah, the President of the Snowy River Shire Council for twenty years, was awarded the OBE in 1956 for his eventual support of the Snowy scheme, but only after the failure of an earlier vision for a new state made up of the Monaro, the far south coast of New South Wales, and East Gippsland, with a major port at Eden, a new rail system, all of the Snowy within its boundaries, and its waters to be used within them. This was at least as credible an option for the resource management and land management of Australia as the one pursued, with fewer environmental problems and better prospects of sustainability. Note also that the term ‘water rights’ of irrigators along the Murray-Murrumbidgee is loaded. These are not, properly, ‘rights’, but entitlements, and of relatively recent origin, compared with those, largely foregone, by the early settlers of the Monaro. In broad terms, this is a reasonable division, in that the Snowy is in a deep gorge throughout. However, it conceals other significant boundaries, as follows: Bairds Crossing to Corrowong Creek A few kilometres to the east of Bairds Crossing and Ironmungie, the Snowy leaves the Monaro Tableland and plunges into the Bungarby Gorge, but it is still fringed by pastoral leases until a little west of the confluence with Corrowong Creek, when it re-enters Kosciuszko National Park. It remains in national park until Buchan, although the New South Welsh segment, through Kosciuszko National Park, is in part composed of land once pastoral, resumed and destocked, as far west as Popong Creek. This country is a heritage landscape in the full sense, much more so than the Victorian segment, which bears the formal title of ‘Heritage river’. The heritage lies both in the difficulty and beauty of the landscape and in its human history. It is extraordinarily rich in the kind of stories that have played a key role in defining the Australian identity; this is not the place to tell them (but see Seddon, 1994, Searching for the Snowy). Because the physical environment is so evocative, pioneering history clings to it tenaciously. There are few places in Australia where the past forces itself on you so powerfully — but because much of the area is difficult of access, it is known to few Australians. Equally little known (even, as I discovered, to people who live in Dalgety) are three of the natural wonders of Australia: the Stone Bridge, Corrowong Falls, the Snowy (or Jimenbuen) Falls. The Stone Bridge is a natural ‘bridge’ of granite in the Bungarby Gorge a little north of the confluence with the Mclaughlin River, where the river runs below a jumble of more or less tabular aplite. The Corrowong Falls are near Warm Corner and the confluence with Corrowong Creek. The Snowy Falls are some 20km downstream, and they are spectacular when the river has a fair head of water. Australia has little to compare with the Snowy Falls; the Barron Falls, perhaps, in Far North Queensland, but the Snowy was a much more powerful river than the Barron (and still is, in times of flood); the falls on the Little River, a tributary of the Snowy near Wulgulmerang, has a bigger drop, but a trickle of water. In Western Australia, there are falls in the remote Kimberley, but in the South West, people drive to see the Canning Dam when and if it overflows, in a wet year. These three natural wonders all depend for their power on a good flow of water. Virtually unknown at present, they have great tourist potential, although one that needs very sensitive management, with controlled and limited access by foot or horseback. After Popong Creek and Milligans Mountain, the Snowy leaves its north-west course to turn south. At Jacobs Creek, it is met by the Barry Way, which runs parallel with the river across the Victorian border, until (as the Snowy River Road) it is forced to climb again to Suggan Buggan. This stretch of the river is unique in the gorge section in having road access, and there are several campgrounds. It is already highly valued by visitors, and comparatively well known. Its attractiveness would be increased by a better flow in summer. The next and only other road access in the gorge is at McKillops Bridge and the confluence with the Deddick, also a popular camp ground, and significant as the ‘put-in’ point for kayaks, canoes and rafts making the trip down the main gorge to Lucas Point at the confluence with the Buchan River. I have made this journey many times, often as an environmental tutor with Adult Education course groups, and many of them have regarded this trip as one of the great experiences of their life. (This sounds extravagant, but I do not exaggerate. A few of them still write to me). Even stronger responses have come from European visitors, who are incredulous that such a place can still be found in a crowded world. Good canoeing depends on adequate water, and additional releases would be very helpful (several scheduled trips in my own experience have had to be aborted). The ecological effects of increased stream flow are hard to estimate. There are many introduced plants on the sandbanks, notably Saponaria, Verbascum, Oenothera, Eschscholtzia and Argemone, but they are relatively harmless. Blackberries form a dense and nearly impenetrable barrier in many places where the steep valley slopes or walls of the gorge meet the margins of the sandbanks, and they have moved up some lovely tributaries within the last few decades; Mountain Creek, for example, was clear when I first encountered it thirty years ago. It is now choked through most of its length. The handsome native tree that used to hold the banks, Tristaniopsis laurina (kanooka, watergum) is also under threat, being replaced by willows, and poplars are also beginning to appear. Willows are obnoxious ecologically and dangerous to canoeists, who have been trapped and drowned by under-water limbs. Willows are also highly obnoxious visually in a largely unspoilt 'bush'; their bright green colour makes the olive tones of the native vegetation look drab, although the natural coloration is full of subtlety. However, it is unlikely that increased water flow would now have much effect on weeds, other than keeping the lower sand banks clear of blackberry and wild rose. (These sandbanks are nevertheless essential campsites for canoeists.) This also encompasses three different landscapes; the first is a continuation of the gorge, but it becomes broader and shallower. It is still bordered by National Park on the east, but on the west by a mix of forested land, used in part for timber cutting, with some farmland. At Bete Bolong, the river leaves the gorge and enters a broad and very fertile tract of flood plain, known collectively as the Orbost Flats. The third segment is a broad estuarine reach, which includes Lake Wat Wat and Lake Corringle, and Lake Curlip on the Brodribb. The Orbost Flats have a dual water problem, that of too much, and too little. Periodic floods have been enormously destructive, and the Snowy Scheme has not eliminated flooding. The 1971 floods were the worst yet recorded, and the most awesome for any Victorian river, with an instantaneous flow of some 650,000 megalitres per day. Levees line the banks, and sedimentation has raised the level of the bed. The river behaviour has changed substantially over the last few decades, from a variety of causes, of which the Snowy Scheme is considered a major contributor (e.g., pers. comm. Gil Richardson, Bete Bolong and Jim Nixon, in Expert Panel of Environmental Assessment Report, 1996). At times of low river flow there is also serious concern about water availability. The estuarine reach has actual and potential environmental problems of some severity, through salt incursion. The wetlands of Lake Corringle, Wat Wat and Curlip are very significant and productive habitat, especially for bird life. There are two patches remaining of the 'jungle' that once covered these river flats, and both are vulnerable. One is near Lochend on the west side of the river, now degraded but still capable of regeneration. Its floristic history has been very thoroughly recorded over time by a succession of distinguished field naturalists (e.g., von Mueller, 1855; Sutton, 1909; Norman Wakefield, 1954). There is an even more valuable reserve on the lower reaches of the Brodribb, a couple of kilometres upstream of its junction with the Snowy, and this is one of the only two sites in Victoria with Livistona australis (the other is at Cabbage Tree Creek). Both sites are vulnerable to changes in salinity. Warm temperate rainforest is rare in Victoria, and of great biological interest. The river at Bete Bolong is still lined with magnificent old trees of mahogany gum (Euycalyptus botryoides); there has been some replanting of this superb tree in the lower reaches, but it is also highly susceptible to increased salinity. The whole of the flood plain segment of the Snowy should be replanted with the tree that once lined it. Given that Princes Highway crosses the river at Orbost, it here has high visibility. It could have some of its former dignity restored to it, and the local community is prepared to support the work of tree planting, but the ‘mighty Snowy’ has little credibility without visible flow. It is now a cot-sized trickle in a king-sized bed. 5. Conclusions for the Snowy Catchment This submission makes no apology for consisting in advocacy for the Snowy (Genoa) Catchment. Advocacy is necessary because it has few voices to speak for it. With a local population of around 8,000, it is heavily outnumbered by the population and economic interests of the Riverina. Thus ‘the value the community holds for the rivers’ (Issues, p. 17) must be explored with great care. The catchment is still relatively little known, although the river is loved with passion by those who do know it, many of them from the big cities. It must be emphasised that Australia as a whole still has not discovered the value of this resource. It is readily conceded that an ‘environmental release’ of 25 per cent will alleviate only some of the environmental and social problems of the catchment, and that the effectiveness of the increase in narrowly ecological terms cannot be known with confidence in advance. What is certain is that when ‘the Snowy flows again’, the flow-on effects will be considerable.
That this whole region has been neglected because of its isolation from most of southeastern Australia can now be turned to advantage. It is generally recognised that much of the scenically desirable coastal and near-coastal sections of New South Wales and Victoria, and especially the north and central coast of New South Wales and to a lesser extent, the coast around Batemans Bay, have grown in ways that have failed to preserve and enhance their natural amenity. In Victoria, retirement housing and tourism have barely passed Metung, with a toe-hold in Mallacoota. We still, nationally, have a chance to get it right. Given the reduction in forestry, the region needs every encouragement and assistance to make good use of its very great natural assets. Intelligent ecotourism has hardly begun here, or anywhere in Australia, although the word is parroted around. Note that Botswana, almost wholly dependent on ecotourism, has the third-fastest growing economy in the world, but with a highly sophisticated infrastructure that offers comfort and security combined with a memorable experience, without degrading the resource. How many Australians, let alone Americans, Europeans, Asians or other visitors have been out spotting sugar gliders at night, or seen wombats at play, or a kangaroo swimming the Snowy, or lyre-birds in the bush around Tingaringy (we have a helicopter-pad on the top of Tingaringy, crudely cleared, yet it offers a breathtaking view of the Australian Alps). Then there are the little water dragons dropping into the river as you paddle by, and the lace monitor, shinning up a tree when disturbed, and the fishing eagles and fruit pigeons, and--- the stories, the wildflowers, the complex geology; the Snowy River Volcanics, the granites, the columnar basalt at New Guinea Bend. Everything else at New Guinea Bend: the Buchan Limestone, the grass trees in the upper cliff, the caves, with their evidence of Aboriginal occupation during the Pleistocene (when the Woolly Mammoth was roaming the icy wastes of Europe). But to deliver a guaranteed experience, we need interpreters and support facilities like those of Ker and Downey in Africa. We will get them, too, and the riches that are here will be unlocked. The large mammals of Africa are conspicuous, while ours are mostly small and often crepuscular or nocturnal, so to be confident of seeing them, you need preparation, highly skilled guides, and clever stage management. But we have advantages over Africa, where many animals are dangerous, and disease and political instability are threatening. We can—or could—offer safety and security along with a unique experience of the natural world. The Snowy Catchment is heritage country in the full sense of that term, and the river should be the jewel in the crown. The Snowy Catchment is heritage country in the full sense of that term, and the river should be the jewel in the crown. The development of this submission was supported financially by the Snowy Genoa Catchment Management Committee and the Snowy River Alliance. The views expressed are those of the author. Australian Water Resources Council 1987 Review of Australia's Water Resources and Water use Australian Government Publishing Service, vol. 2, Canberra Davidson, B. 1969 Australia: Wet or Dry—the physical and economic limits to the expansion of irrigation. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne Ferguson, W. H. 1899 'Report on Geological Survey of the Snowy Valley' Geological Survey of Victoria, Report No. 11 Good, Roger, 1989 (ed) The Scientific Significance of the Australian Alps, The Australian Alps National Parks Liaison Committee, Canberra Ghassemi, F., Jakeman, A. J. and Nix H. A. 1995 Salinisation of Land and Water Resources: Human Causes, Extent, Management and Case Studies University of New South Wales Press, Kensington NSW Nixon, James, 1996 'Local knowledge' in Expert Panel Environmental Flows Assessment of the Snowy River below Jindabyne Dam. Snowy—Genoa Catchment Management Committee, Cooma Rose, A. J. 1963 'The Snowy River—an appraisal' Current Affairs Bulletin, vol. 31, no. 13 Scougall, Babette, 1992 (ed). Cultural Heritage of the Australian Alps. Australian Alps Liaison Committee, Canberra Seddon, George, 1994. Searching for the Snowy: an environmental history. Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW Snowy—Genoa Catchment Management Committee, 1996-1998. Natural Resources Management Strategy , Cooma Sutton, C. S. 1909, Botanical notes of a visit to the Snowy River District'. The Victorian Naturalist, Feb. 1909, vol.XXV, no. 10, pp. 155-60 von Mueller, F., 1854 'Second general report of the Government Botanist on the vegetation of the colony' Victorian parliamentary Papers, Government Printer, Melbourne Wakefield, Norman, 1944 'A remnant of the Snowy River Jungle', The Victorian Naturalist, vol. 61 pp. 139-41 |
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