Australia's legendary Snowy River to flow again
Date: 09-Oct-00
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Michael Perry
A A$300 million (US$160 million) rescue project announced on Friday by the New South Wales and Victorian states will see the Snowy return to 28 percent of its natural flow in around 15 years.
"The Snowy River is bound up in Australian history," Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre, told reporters in welcoming the rescue project.
An extra 330 billion litres of alpine water will flow downstream each year, but the Snowy will still be a far cry from the mighty river immortalised in Australian writer and poet Andrew "Banjo" Paterson's "The Man From Snowy River".
By comparison, Sydney Harbour contains 500 billion litres.
The increased water flow will come from the more efficient use of the river's water by farmers using conservation methods such as covers over irrigation channels to reduce evaporation.
Some 99 percent of the Snowy's flow has been redirected westward for irrigation and in 1997, police received a bomb threat against the Snowy's main dam.
The Snowy rescue project comes after a decade of fighting by environmentalists and downstream farmers.
"The Snowy River was on its death bed for the last 30 or 40 years," Angel said. "It has only had one percent of its flow and no river, particularly a vibrant alpine river, can survive such a starvation of water."
Angel said he hoped the increased water would mimic natural flows, with more water released when the snow melts in Australia's Mount Kosciuszko range and less during winter, thus rebuilding the river's biodiversity.
Environmentalists said more efficient water use in one of the country's major food belts would also reduce salinity, a growing problem which is now encroaching on Australian farmlands.
"One of the big reasons for salinity is the water-logging of the soil and the salt rising to the surface. This saving of the Snowy River is also about the saving of the environment of the irrigation districts," Angel said.
Farmers said they welcomed the Snowy rescue project, as long as the extra water came from water saving schemes and not a reduction in their allocation.