NEWS AND VIEWS
Australia

Other Countries

Friday, 20 April 2007

The PM Turns Climate Pessimist

John Howard has shown an amazing capacity to be sanguine about long term weather predictions of world-wide rising temperatures but yesterday it was a different story when he spoke of the dire circumstances facing the irrigation regions of south east Australia if the short term prediction of a 50:50 chance of above or below average rainfall over the next month turns out on the below side. While some world leaders worry their people with fears of melting ice caps flooding coastal cities and disappearing islands, our Prime Minister's concern doesn't go past "the critical situation that we face if there is no significant rainfall over the next few weeks."

Mr Howard showed at his press conference called yesterday to advise the outcome of the contingency planning report on water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin that was requested at the Melbourne Cup Day meeting with Premiers last year that he is still not comfortable talking about the broader issue of global warming. This was his response to the solitary question he was asked about climate change:

JOURNALIST: On the issue of climate change, you have said before the jury is out on the link between climate change and this current drought. Aren't people going to jump on this and say well this is looking very much like something extraordinary and perhaps it is climate change taking effect?

PRIME MINISTER: Well we've had droughts before. We've had very severe droughts before but we had smaller populations and we had lesser demand. Look I recognise the ongoing debate about the link between the two things and I don't vary from that. I don't think this dramatically alters it. I mean we're practical people we Australians, we've got to deal with a situation and I would have thought what people ought to do is focus on what we can do to make sure that the available water does, is used efficiently to meet the needs of town communities. And I think in planning for the future we've got to see it as a national challenge to be dealt with at a national level.

With his Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Malcolm Turnbull, alongside him, Mr Howard did not want to be diverted from the message of his report that "unless there are very substantial inflows, and for that read heavy rain, leading to run-off into the catchment areas, prior to mid-May 2007, there will be insufficient water available to allow any allocation at the commencement of the 2007-2008 water year for irrigation, the environment or for any purposes other than critical urban supplies."  His words were designed to produce a headline and they certainly achieved just that but what he said was hardly new. The Murray Darling Commission in its monthly drought reports has been saying the same thing for a couple of months. The April update , also released yesterday but not referred to by either the PM or his Environment Minister, reported that "recent announcements by relevant State water agencies have indicated that opening irrigation allocations for the River Murray for 2007/08 would be zero unless there is a significant change in inflow conditions before the start of the irrigation season."

Perhaps the real reason for the sombre Prime Ministerial assessment was not to tell irrigators something they already knew but an attempt to regain some momentum for his stalled plan for the Commonwealth to take over control of the whole Murray-Darling river system. Not that the Victorian Government has shown any sign of being influenced. The Victorian Water Minister John Thwaites said this morning the state will not agree and has accused the Commonwealth of playing politics.

Part of the politics is to try and avoid being the government blamed should the Murray really stop flowing in this election year for, despite the tone of Mr Howard's announcement yesterday, it is the State governments not the Commonwealth which will actually make the decisions about who can take how much water from the rivers this year. It was this reality that was the reason for the following seemingly cryptic sentences in yesterday's Prime Ministerial press release:

Our experts are meeting to put in place contingency plans to ensure MDB communities have a critical minimum water supply and to examine other measures to assist irrigators. If some states were to exercise their rights under the current Murray-Darling agreement, communities in those regions may not have access to critical water supplies. I have written to the Premiers seeking their cooperation to ensure this does not happen and I expect no difficulty with this approach.

Will the River Really Run Dry?

While the Prime Minister yesterday did not release the report on contingency plans for water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin, the Murray Darling Commission's update on drought conditions did become available and it reveals irrigation in 2007/08 is much more dependent on rain and run-off than in any previous year since Dartmouth Dam was completed in 1979. Yet even if very dry conditions are experienced as over the last year, it is expected that Murray catchment inflows, together with any future contributions from the Snowy Mountains Scheme, would be sufficient to meet basic human, stock and domestic requirements (subject to appropriate levels of restriction).

The Commission reports the 12 month period ending March 2007 was the driest 12 month period for the River Murray in 115 years of historical inflow record. A repeat of the same rainfall pattern for another 12 months would result in even lower inflows due largely to reduced inflows from groundwater systems. This trend is evident for the last three months with inflows to the River for February and March 2007 (excluding Snowy Scheme releases and inflows to Menindee Lakes ) compared with 2006 are as follows:

If the Snowy Mountains Scheme continues to experience record low inflows, then releases from the Scheme to the Murray would also be less than the record low releases in 2006/07.

The Commission report continues:

Under this scenario, contingency measures would need to continue to ensure that there would be enough water in the Murray to meet evaporative losses and critical water needs of all the towns and cities that rely on the Murray from Albury to Adelaide and beyond, as well as other domestic and stock requirements. Under that extreme scenario, there would be no water available for irrigation or the environment.

Although the probability of this extreme scenario eventuating is very low, and has never been experienced in our records, it is nevertheless prudent that contingency planning and implementation continue until such time that there is sufficient rain and inflow to give confidence that the water crisis has passed. Inflows in the first three months of 2007 are only slightly in excess of inflows incorporated in the worst case planning scenario, reflecting the continuation of the record low inflow sequence experienced since mid 2006.

While Mr Howard is waiting for State Premiers for permission to release his contingency report, the Murray Basin Commission has given some indications of what the group of senior officials has recommended. The Contingency Plan covers a range of measures a number of which have already been initiated, including:

. conserving as much water in upstream storages as possible;

. adopting a very low target reserve for storage in Lake Victoria for end May 2007;

. reduced targets for minimum flow along the River Murray;

. early pumping of water to Mt. Lofty storages in South Australia ; and

. temporarily disconnecting selected permanent wetlands from the River Murray.

Planning is continuing for other measures which would be implemented if extremely dry conditions persist.

As to whether they will persist, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has indicated that for the southern part of the Murray-Darling Basin , there is about a 50% chance that rainfall would be above the median. This is a slightly lower chance than was announced for the three month outlook for February to April 2007 inclusive. The Bureau has announced in recent weeks that the 2006/07 El Niño event has ended, and there is an increased chance of a La Niña event developing in 2007. The Bureau has noted that the confidence level in the Rainfall Outlook from the computer models is low in autumn months but improves between July and January.

As to the River Murray actually stopping flowing, the Commission concedes it is possible that flows may need to be reduced to zero but only in the extreme, and very low probability, circumstances "of inflow conditions being significantly lower than the record dry of 2006/07. Under those circumstances, it is possible that flows may need to be temporarily suspended in the River Murray over summer of 2007/08. Temporary measures would be needed to access deeper pools for those towns not already connected to weir pools or natural deep pools."