IT WAS great to see Andrew Reynolds, the MDBA’s executive director of river management acknowledging what is commonly understood by those living the reality of poor water management — “Water is scarce, and as river managers we need to store as much as we can for future use.”
Strangely enough, so did our forefathers who had the vision of drought-proofing our nation through the construction of the Snowy Hydro Scheme, Hume and Dartmouth dams and the gravity fed irrigation systems which rely on stored water for the production of food.
The delivery of the basin plan is based on sending stored water out to sea or evaporating it into the Lower Lakes; the end of the system and the Southern Ocean seem strange places to store water for future use.
The wastage of water over the last two years through the flawed assumptions of the Basin Plan is embarrassing for a first world country.
It is time the MDBA did their job — be independent and do what is right for the entire Basin, call out the problems and work to fix them, not just accept the failings and plough ahead accepting collateral damage along the way.
Ron McWhae, Barham
