The mayors of several western New South Wales councils have warned their townships face major water crises within weeks and have urged the state government to impose a one-month embargo on irrigators pumping from the upper part of the Darling River system.
The Brewarrina mayor, Phil O’Connor, one of five mayors who travelled up to 900km for a meeting in Sydney on Wednesday, said there was plenty of water in Beardmore dam in Queensland but there was none for people downstream in NSW.
“It’s all allocated for irrigation,” he said. “Our big ask is to go one month with an embargo [on irrigators pumping any water]. If the minister could do that. I know crops would suffer, and there would be damage financially, but people are more important than a few dollars.”
Although allocations for irrigation have been reduced to zero in many catchments due to the drought, irrigators often have “carry over” water – water from pervious allocations – that they can pump. There is also still water in on-farm storages.
The mayors have also asked the government to claim back water that was illegally extracted, as revealed on the ABC’s Four Corners program in 2017.
The mayor of Walgett, Manuel Martinez, said there had been three environmental flows that never reached Walgett, which has been living on bore water.
“We have had one in the last few days that reached us, it just got there to our reservoir,” he said. “We have enough water for the next two months.
“But we have been told by the Bureau [of Meteorology] that there is no rain forecast for the next three months and there is no more environmental flows. In the next two months we will be back to dire straits.”
The mayors said they were “very disappointed” that the state minister for water, Niall Blair, was unable to attend Wednesday’s meeting.
A furious mayor of Broken Hill, Dariea Turley, said they had been told the minister had important ministerial business, and could not attend.
“We thought that our attendance here was an important duty given we represent over 40% of the state,” she said.
However, the minister said the mayors had been told ahead of time he could not attend in person, and though he planned to phone in, his other immovable appointment had gone over time.
“I offered a teleconference, they did not need to travel, but they said they wanted to meet with the state’s water experts,” he said. “The western division councils were also advised from the outset that a senior member of my team would attend on my behalf.”
Turley said the mayors were talking about critical human water use.
“Menindee water supply is critical. How is the water at Walgett going to be addressed over the next three months?” she said.
“Bourke is wondering how its going to fight fires. They are going on level 4 water restrictions, which they have never experienced before. How will they fight fires with no water?
“There is just no recognition of the impact on our communities. If you lived in Sydney, these issues would immediately be addressed.”
Turley, who is running for the NSW seat of Barwon as Labor’s candidate, is particularly worried about Menindee, which is just 12km away and the site of the major fish kill two weeks ago.
It is currently using treated water from its weir pool and from bores. Since the fish kill it smells and is a muddy colour. Town residents are relying on rainwater for drinking rather than risking the tap water.
Without significant inflows, Turley has real concerns the town will run out of water.
O’Connor said Brewarrina had had a red alert three weeks ago but was now back to amber after a small flow.
“When it’s a red alert, no stock are meant to drink it but there’s no way to stop people pumping directly from the river,” he said. “And the kids keep swimming in it. You can tell them it’s so dangerous but they just keep doing it.
“We are very concerned about the long-term health of the kids.”
Meanwhile the Australian Academy of Science, at the request of the Labor party, has announced an expert panel to report on the reasons behind the fish kill at Menindee on 7 January.
It will be chaired by Professor Craig Moritz FAA, director at the centre for biodiversity analysis, Australian National University.
Expert panel members are:
Prof Tim Flannery FAA – Melbourne sustainable society institute, University of Melbourne
Prof Lee Godden, FASSA – director, centre for resources, energy and environment law, University of Melbourne
Prof Quentin Grafton FASSA - director, centre for water economics, environment and policy, Australian National University
Prof Lesley Head FAHA FASSA, school of geography, University of Melbourne
Prof Richard Kingsford – director, centre for ecosystem science, University of New South Wales
Prof John Williams FTSE – Crawford school of public policy, Australian National University
