NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE: UPPER SOUTH EAST DRYLAND SALINITY AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT ACT REPORT 2010-11

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (11:37): I move:

That the 60^th report of the committee, entitled Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002 Report 2010-11, be noted.

Since December 2006, the Natural Resources Committee has been responsible for the oversight of the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002. This is the final report required of the Natural Resources Committee under the act as the project has now been completed. The committee visited the Upper South-East region between 15 and 17 November 2011, meeting with local landholders, both supportive and opposed to the scheme. We also received detailed briefings and a comprehensive tour from the Department for Water and the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board on the technical aspects of the scheme.

The South-East region of South Australia is a highly modified landscape. Broadscale land clearing and an extensive drainage network developed over the past century have converted what was once a wetland-dominated landscape to an agricultural production on a vast scale. Although this has generated great wealth and prosperity for the region and the state, environmental health has deteriorated as a consequence. Several east-west drains intercept environmental flows, which previously flowed north to the Upper South-East and the Coorong, a Ramsar-listed wetland of international importance.

The USE scheme attempts to do two things: drain saline groundwater and flood waters away from agricultural areas (the deep drainage project); and maintain and improve surface water flows to wetlands and watercourses (the REFLOWS project). Whilst the majority of landholders appear to support the scheme, some remain concerned about the quantity and quality of the water that has been delivered to the wetlands via the surface water drainage or REFLOWS system. These landholders argue that the recently completed Bald Hill/Wimpinmerit Drain, which is used to divert saline groundwater north to the Morella Basin and the Coorong, has caused the water table to drop, drying out the Parrakie Wetlands.

The committee heard from witnesses opposed to the project that the completion of the drainage system adjacent to the Parrakie Wetlands meant there were now no unimpacted wetlands left to compare with impacted wetlands in the region. These same witnesses gave evidence that in late 2010 salinity in the surface water flows intended for the West Avenue wetlands was considerably higher than the saline water in the groundwater drainage system, which is the reverse of what it should be.

The alkaline level of the REFLOWS water was also extremely high, killing most of the biota living in the wetlands. This is important because these wetlands are the home of the southern bell frog and the Yarra pygmy perch, both now endangered species. The committee heard conflicting evidence regarding the causes of the wetland drying and the unexpectedly high salinity and alkalinity within the DFW, blaming below average winter rains in 2011 together with unauthorised obstructions and diversions upstream.

The department suggests that high salinity may have resulted from the first flush effect in the newly constructed REFLOWS system, with the alkaline levels being a natural phenomena. Despite these arguments and counterarguments about specific environmental impacts of the USE scheme, the committee heard that in general terms the USE scheme has been successful in reducing salinity and increasing agricultural productivity for some landholders.

The department openly acknowledged the need to improve the operation of the surface water drainage network as part of the adaptive management approach. The department has put in place a comprehensive hydrological monitoring network, facilitating flow management in both the surface and groundwater drainage systems. The committee hopes that it will be a possible way of tweaking the system to fix any problems that have been identified.

Committee members formed the view that it is too early to make a final judgement as to whether or not the scheme has been a success, particularly in relation to the impact of the Bald Hill/Wimpinmerit Drain and the West Avenue wetlands. Members intend to revisit the region after significant winter rains in order to consider the efficacy of the REFLOWS project, especially its success in supporting ecosystems of the Parrakie wetlands, including the resident southern bell frogs and Yarra pygmy perch.

The committee would also like the Minister for Environment and Conservation to ensure that adequate research is undertaken to address the unresolved environmental impacts on the region, especially with regard to high alkalinity levels and salinity in floodways, degradation of soils due to sodicity, and the erosion of drains and floodways.

I acknowledge the valuable contribution of the committee members during the year: Mr Geoff Brock MP, the Hon. Robert Brokenshire MLC, the Hon. John Dawkins MLC, Mrs Robyn Geraghty MP, Mr Lee Odenwalder MP, Mr Don Pegler MP, Mr Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, the Hon. Russell Wortley MLC, the Hon. Paul Holloway MLC and the Hon. Gerry Kandelaars MLC. I would like to emphasise and thank members for the cooperative manner in which they have worked together, and I look forward to a continuation of this spirit of cooperation in the coming year.

I would also like to finally thank the committee staff for their support and also the advisers and people who have helped us with the many visits that the Natural Resources Committee has made to the local area, not to mention the local people who have really worked hard to make sure that we have some understanding of the arguments to do with the Upper South-East. I commend the report to the house.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (11:44): Certainly, the opposition supports this report. As a member of the committee, unfortunately I was only able to participate in day one and not day two of our field trip, but I have great confidence in the multipartisan way in which our committee works. From my perspective, as a person from the north of the state, it was a marvellous opportunity to get down to the South-East and really get a far better understanding of how this whole drainage system works. I wish I could have been there for the second day as well.

I found it fascinating to look at the system of channels and drains and to see different quality water moving separated from itself, sometimes a long way away and sometimes quite close to each other, but it is a fairly concentrated network of channels and drains. An enormous amount of effort, time and money has gone into this. It is certainly fair to say, as our chair said, that there is a wide range of views from people who have provided evidence to us. There is certainly more support for the system as a whole than not, but it is important to note that there is a wide range of views about the system.

I would also just like to point out in my brief contribution that, while this is an important project and it is going to contribute to a number of factors—importantly, one of them being the health of the Coorong—I would like to just highlight the fact that, regardless of how successful this project may be, and even if it is as successful as possible, it does nothing compared to the work that we need to do with regard to the Murray-Darling Basin, with regard to contributing to the health of the Coorong. This project is important work and it certainly addresses the far end of the Coorong, but it would be a mistake for anybody to think that positive work in this area can replace positive work on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Having said that, thank you to all of the people. While I said there were differing views, we were given very genuine evidence by a wide range of people who came to see us here, put written submissions in and hosted us and took us around their home patches. I thank them for that and I certainly thank the staff who put a lot of work into this report and my fellow members of the committee. Thank you.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:46): I rise to contribute to the debate on the noting of the report into the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002. As members I am sure are aware, the totality of the Upper South-East scheme is within the electorate of MacKillop. Members who have been here for a little while would recall that, before coming into this place, I was, in fact, a member of the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board—a board which had quite a considerable amount to do with the Upper South-East scheme, particularly in the early years of the implementation of the project. I think I have got a fairly good working knowledge of the project and what it has done.

A couple of questions have been raised during the debate so far about the assessments we will make about the efficacy or the success of the scheme sometime in the future. Can I tell the house that this scheme was originally conceived as an agricultural scheme. Over the probably at least 20 years that it has taken to bring the scheme to its completion, the emphasis has changed somewhat from being a scheme principally to support agricultural endeavours in the Upper South-East of the state to turn this into a significant environmental scheme. Those two outcomes were never mutually exclusive. By good design, both outcomes can be achieved and, indeed, enhanced.

For members who do not have an intimate knowledge of the South-East of the state—and I have used this statement many times in the place—Goyder, in 1864, noted the area that he had estimated in acres between Salt Creek and the Victorian border of the South-East. He said that, in his estimation, at least half of that area became inundated every winter by water between one and six feet deep.

So, if you look at a map of the South-East portion of the state, you identify the location of Salt Creek and draw a line east-west from Salt Creek to the Victorian border. Look at that area below that line, all the way down to Port MacDonnell on the coast south of Mount Gambier, and imagine half of that land surface being covered by water between one and six feet deep each winter. That is the amount of water. That is the landscape that greeted white settlers when they first went into that area.

Indeed, that part of the state that was first settled was at Mount Gambier principally because Mount Gambier was an elevated region and self draining and it was dry. The rest of that part of the state was very, very wet. The first ideas on draining the South-East were about achieving transport links between Mount Gambier and Adelaide. It was George Goyder who came up with the proposition to convert a lot of that land to agricultural pursuits and it was a grand idea of his. As the chairman of the committee has pointed out, it is a very changed landscape. The landscape in no way resembles what was there in those early days.

In relation to the drainage scheme in the Lower South-East, drains started to be dug there in a serious way in the late 1860s and work continued right up until the early 1970s, so it was well over 100 years of excavation to drain the Lower and Mid South-East. The Upper South-East scheme was conceived because dryland salinity was encroaching onto a lot of the agricultural land in the Upper South-East. That land was developed much later than the Lower South-East. It had a lower rainfall and it was a poorer quality of land in most instances, but it was still very good agricultural land. It lent itself to livestock grazing and growing lucerne.

For many years the use of the lucerne plant underpinned the livestock operations on that land until a couple of insects arrived in this country and decimated the lucerne stands. It was then found that the country that had been cleared of the native scrub and converted to lucerne was suddenly covered with annual grass pastures which were fairly shallow rooted, and that change in the vegetation growing on the landscape allowed the watertable to come up and approach the surface. Those who have studied this understand that, once the watertable gets closer than about 1.2 metres from the surface, if that groundwater contains salt, it will migrate to the surface and leave salt scores on the surface. The original scheme was conceived to lower that watertable, to make sure that the watertable across those flats was more than 1.2 metres below the surface.

The problem of the loss of lucerne started to arise in the late 1970s. Through the 1980s the dryland salinity became evident and serious discussion began. There was a major EIS study undertaken across the Upper South-East, and from that grew the scheme which was started in about the mid-1990s. The scheme has had its ups and downs. I remember going to the opening of the first drain, the Fairview Drain. I think Rob Kerin performed the opening at Keilira in the late 1990s or the early 2000s. At that stage, the scheme had somewhat stalled, and it was not until some time later that it got underway again, apart from the fact that Tom Brinkworth, the major landowner in the area, had constructed a considerable number of the drains which are now part of the scheme. That, in itself, was a fairly controversial exercise. Might I say that, if it was not for Tom Brinkworth and his dedication to that landscape and the work that he did, I doubt whether the scheme would be finished now.

I am delighted that the scheme is finished. I am delighted that the REFLOWS program which was brought into the scheme very much later has become part of the scheme. There is now a lot more opportunity to harvest high quality water out of the South-East of the state and return it to the southern basin of the Coorong, where a lot of it used to end up before we interfered with the landscape in that part of the state.

I do not necessarily agree with my colleague the member for Stuart's comments about the Coorong. It is my belief that the southern basin of the Coorong is more damaged by the drainage work that we have done in the South-East over the last 160-odd years than anything that we have done in the River Murray. If you google the Coorong and get a close-up view of the area between the southern and northern basins, you will see that there is a very restricted opportunity for the flow of water between those two basins. Even with good flows in the river and at the mouth of the river over a season and a half, the last 18 months, we have seen very little flow of that high quality low salinity water into the southern basin of the Coorong.

I do not believe that even if we had good flows down the River Murray and high quality water in the northern part of the Coorong over the next 10 or 15 years we would see the recovery of the southern basin of the Coorong. Indeed, the southern basin of the Coorong became hypersaline probably starting 30 or 40 years ago and maybe even a bit longer. I do not know that the problems in that part of the Coorong are caused by what we have done on the River Murray.

That is not to say that we do not have a lot of work to do in the Murray-Darling Basin, but I think there are more opportunities to harvest high quality water from the South-East. I am pretty certain the Liberal Party will make a submission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority along those lines, that that is something that should be looked at and that more money should be spent on a project to deliver water from the South-East back into the Coorong.

I am delighted that this project is completed. As an agricultural project, it has been fantastic for the farmers in that area who were suffering from dryland salinity. It has turned a lot of that agriculture around and increased the productivity by many times. I commend the report to the house.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:56): Briefly, I commend the report. In particular, I want to commend the current member for MacKillop and the work he has done. Since the first day he got here, it has been a high priority for him, and he does speak with some satisfaction. I also pay tribute to the previous member for MacKillop, the late Hon. Dale Baker who, of course, died this morning. I note that with some sadness. We will long remember him, and no doubt the parliament will consider that in a few days' time.

Mr BROCK (Frome) (11:57): I will be very quick. I also want to contribute to this report and congratulate all the members. As the member for Stuart has indicated, it is a great multipolitical membership, we all get on well and we come to a great conclusion. I also just want to thank all the local landowners, who fully explained the extent of the drainage down there. It is a unique system in that area there, and it gave us a better idea and understanding of the drainage issues and how they can affect the environmental conditions, the landowners and their future direction. Also, it gives us as members of that committee a far better understanding when we have to decide and vote in this house here on issues. Again, I congratulate everybody who was down there. I congratulate all the members and commend the report to this house.

Motion carried.