Public Works Committee: Inlet Regulating Structures on Margaret Dowling Creek and Eckerts Creek

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (11:04): I move:

That the 538^th report of the committee, entitled Inlet Regulating Structures on Margaret Dowling Creek and Eckerts Creek, be noted.

This project is comprised of two components, namely the Margaret Dowling Creek project and the Eckerts Creek project, also referred to as Bank J project. They form part of the early works for the South Australian Riverland Floodplain Integrated Infrastructure Program, which is a $155 million commonwealth-funded project. Specifically, these works will allow flexibility to safely control a greater range of flows to the Pike and Katarapko floodplains.

Currently, a regulator, footbridge and road bridge on Margaret Dowling Creek all restrict flow and fish passage from the river to the floodplain. In addition, the regulator is unsafe and the road bridge is in need of repair. Hence, there is an opportunity to replace the existing regulator with a new regulator and fishway, replace Lock 5 road bridge, and replace the existing footbridge in Bert Dix Park, at a cost of $4.9 million (GST exclusive).

These works on Margaret Dowling Creek will allow for increased flow capacity, from 150 megalitres per day to 600 megalitres per day, which will allow flows onto Pike Floodplain in a managed way, especially during high water flows. It will also provide for improved fish passage between the main River Murray channel and Pike Floodplain and eliminate the risks associated with the operation and use of the current regulator and Lock 5 road bridge. The project will support the reinstatement of the high social value amenity at Bert Dix Park.

The second component of the project, the Eckerts Creek project (also called Bank J project), aims to increase the flow capacity of Eckerts Creek from approximately 60 megalitres per day to 633 megalitres per day, to increase flows into Katarapko Floodplain. These works will also provide improved fish passage between the River Murray and Katarapko Floodplain. Currently, there is a single pipe culvert at Bank J which restricts flow and is a barrier to native and other fish movement from the river to Eckerts Creek anabranch system on the Katarapko Floodplain. These works will address this with the replacement of the existing regulator with a new regulator and fishway as well as a new box culvert structure under the access track.

The cost of these works is $4 million, exclusive of GST. The works proposed in both these projects are due to occur in the first half of this calendar year but are dependent on contractor timeframes and water flows of the River Murray. Given the straightforward nature of these works and the total cost of the project being $8.9 million exclusive of GST, the committee agreed that the written submission provided sufficient information regarding the project and no verbal evidence was required.

The committee has previously resolved to determine on a case-by-case basis if it needs to hear further evidence on projects valued at under $11 million. In this case, the committee was pleased with the submission. Given this and pursuant to section 12C of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991, the Public Works Committee reports to parliament that is recommends the proposed public works.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (11:17): I too rise to support the 538^th report, titled 'Inlet regulating structures on Margaret Dowling Creek and Eckerts Creek'. Obviously, I have a great interest in these two environmental works, being in the electorate of Chaffey. These two sub-projects are part of the bigger picture with the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. These structure upgrades are really about, I would not go as far as saying goldplating structures, but there are current structures in place that are working okay. They are a little leaky and they have been put in place by irrigators and some of the environmental sectors of government departments.

What we are going to see now are greater flows of environmental water going into assets along the river, and if I talk about the Margaret Dowling Creek structure, that is part of the bypass. Some people in here would understand that most of the structures in the Murray River (the locks) have a bypass around them, so the Margaret Dowling structure is about the bypass around Lock 5 at Renmark. That is a connection into the Pike River floodplain, which is a very large environmental asset that has seen quite a bit of salinity build-up and degradation over a long period of time.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is now going to allocate water into certain areas of environmental significance. To be able to put water in there efficiently and in a constructive amount of time, we need to upgrade those structures so that they can handle the extra force and extra water. The Margaret Dowling Creek structure will go up from 150 megalitres a day to 600 megalitres a day. That is really increasing the amount of water per day, or the flow-in to that area, fourfold. Some of those rock wall structures and other lesser barriers or constraints will have to be upgraded, and this is what this Margaret Dowling Creek structure is all about.

It is a $4.9 million (GST exclusive) project, and will mean that they can put water through the Margaret Dowling Creek entrance into Pike Creek much more quickly and efficiently. It will help with native fish—sadly, it will help with carp as well, but I think the federal government are doing a pretty good job at trialling the herpes virus with the eradication of carp. That is another part of the jigsaw puzzle with these environmental regulators. We have to have good environmental management around these structures so that they benefit the ecosystem and all the water that has been given up by irrigators and their communities for the benefit of the environment so that we have a sustainable river system.

I just want to touch on the Eckerts Creek project, which is at Katarapko. Katarapko is also the bypass around Lock 4. As I said, some of the older rock walls are already in place, but the increasing pressure, particularly at Katarapko, from 60 megalitres of water flow a day up to 633 megalitres a day will mean that it will put a lot more pressure on these structures and walls. That is why we are converting them to concrete structures. These will need much more strength and much more management around them so that they do withstand the extra flow, the extra pressure, and that they do benefit those environmental areas.

Obviously, Katarapko and Pike Creek are great pieces of the puzzle. We have seen Lock 6, which is the Chowilla project, which is a huge structure put across the Chowilla Creek. That is the first of the major structures in South Australia. We look at Lock 5, which is the Pike River floodplain, and we look at Lock 4, which is the Eckerts Creek. I am hoping that we will see the other structures come into play. In Lock 3, we have Banrock Station, who are the regulators there. We have Lock 2 down at Hogwash and Taylorville, and then we move further down to Lock 1; there is the bypass there.

All of these structures need to be upgraded, and these first three are just many parts of a big puzzle in South Australia to make sure that the environmental water is utilised efficiently. I think the most important part of these two projects is that we see that very valuable resource, River Murray water, put into environmental assets quickly and efficiently to benefit fish and the ecosystem around those structures (most notably, the river red gums, black box trees and the lignums), and all of the wildlife.

The $4 million price tag on the Eckerts Creek structure is, of course, commonwealth funding that has come into South Australia. I look forward to seeing all of these structures being upgraded. I would also like to note that I would like to see some more will by the state government to lobby the commonwealth government to look farther afield than just the easy concrete structures around our lock system. We need to look at environmental works, measures and structures, particularly at the Lower Lakes—

Mr Pederick: Hear, hear!

Mr WHETSTONE: I know that the member for Hammond would 'Hear, hear!' that, because we see too many government decisions take the easy option and not take the hard line about how we can use environmental watering to benefit our Lower Lakes system. To date there have been almost no environmental works and measures down at those Lower Lakes. My fear is that when we do have another dry, when we do need to go to our Eastern States counterparts as part of that four states basin group, we need to have a look at how we can best use water flows to benefit South Australia, to show the nation that we are proactive, rather than talking about being proactive and achieving very little.

The interconnector between Lake Albert and the Coorong is something that I think will be a great asset. We need to look at structures at the Murray Mouth. We cannot continue to rely on river flows to scour the mouth and keep it open. We have to look at how we can use the power of the ocean to keep that mouth open. That is something that I will talk more about later, because I am, I guess, coming away from the Eckerts Creek and the Margaret Dowling structures.

I think that as a state we need to be more proactive, we need to be more accepting that there are environmental works and measures that need to be achieved that are currently not on the government's agenda. We need to look at the structures on the sea side of the Murray Mouth, and we need to look at interconnectors between Lake Albert and the Coorong to achieve good environmental outcomes with no extra water. I think that is the most critical part of the message I am trying to get across here.

At the moment, these structures require extra water to get our outcomes, but the further we go down the river the smarter we have to be. I think the government needs to stop sitting on its hands and look at the big picture when we do have another drought, because whether we have a desal plant or whether we have stormwater capture, we need environmental works and measures and structures to be smarter, and we need them to make our environmental and our assets here in South Australia more reliable. So I do commend the 538^th report to the house and look forward to more contributions.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:27): I want to make a brief contribution to the 538^th report of the Public Works Committee regulating structures on Margaret Dowling Creek and Eckerts Creek. These structures will certainly be of benefit in the management of systems and environmental management right throughout the Murray, but as the member for Chaffey has indicated, we need to manage all of that water wisely because there is only so much of it. It has only been a few years since the millennium drought broke in September 2010 and it was a great feeling to see that muddy Darling water flowing into the river, because that was the first lot of water that relieved the situation for the River Murray in my electorate, when the water level had dropped by approximately two metres.

Certainly, with all these structures in mind and any water planning, we need to make sure that we make absolute use of the water, whether it is for critical needs, human needs, whether it is for the environment or indeed whether it is for food production, which is also vital. Considering the perilous state of mining at the moment in this state—and I am sure it will come back—we are so much more reliant on agriculture, as we have been since the settlement of this state.

There were a couple of things that the member for Chaffey related to, and certainly I am one who is very keen on an interconnector between Lake Albert and the Coorong. There needs to be a full environmental impact statement completed so that we can see whether there is any negative impact on the Coorong if some sort of connector is put in place.

I personally think that the figure quoted of around $20 million would be a much better amount of money to be spent on the actual structure. There is a bit of debate about how the structure should be made, whether it is a channel so you can promote tourism as well (which is a good idea) or a pipeline affair that can be regulated—but a channel could be regulated as well with a lock arrangement. It is the idea of the minister in the other place, minister Hunter and his department, that they can freshen up Lake Albert with an unregulated flow of water.

Now, I cannot remember when the last decent slug of unregulated water came down the river but things are dry. There have been some rains over January and certainly early this month in sections of the basin, but one thing I will certainly never forget from the millennium drought was how long it took to wet up the catchment before water of any amount flowed into the system. It took gigalitres and gigalitres of water right across the basin just to get it damp again so that we would have that run-off into the system.

The thought that, because Lake Albert is a terminal lake, you can bring hundreds of gigalitres of water at a time and do some flushing through the Narrung Narrows, I think, is completely flawed. It is completely flawed on a number of levels because it uses far too much water. And even though we have the department and the minister saying, 'Oh, that will be unregulated water', it is also not a good look in the overall management of water for the whole basin because at the moment we see producers and users right along the system giving up water with buybacks and other measures so that we can get the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in place.

It is a good thing that that is happening but it is affecting right across; and, whether it is right or wrong, certainly the perception of having to use hundreds of gigalitres of water to flush out Lake Albert is not a good one and certainly not a good one for our state because we need to look upstream and work with all of our upstream neighbours, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and getting the right result for the whole river system.

Certainly I would endorse the comments of the member for Chaffey in looking at a decent regulator system for the connector for Lake Albert through to the Coorong, but also we need to be looking forward. I know there has been some preliminary work done on how the barrages are managed, and that work should be accelerated, I believe, because we need to have fully automated Torrumbarry-style weir gates down there that could be operated, perhaps, by a mobile phone from anywhere in the world if need be instead of what is there at the moment which is a stop-log process and which would have to either be pulled out or put back in.

As we saw during the millennium drought, those stop logs were leaking and there were many methods, such as poly pipe and plugs, used to try to plug the gates because when they were built they did not think that they had that much pressure from the ocean side trying to get into the fresh side of the system, and there was a lot of salt water that leaked in.

We need to have a far better system to preserve the finite fresh water that we do have and to make sure that we have a fresh system. Overall I endorse any of these works so long as they manage water in the appropriate manner because everyone in the system is deserving of getting a fair go—so long as the water, when it is used and what can be reused many times coming down the system, can be used in a wise manner so that everyone gets their fair kick. The environment needs a kick and the critical human need is absolutely vital but also we never can forget our agricultural production.

Ms DIGANCE (Elder) (11:33): I would like to thank both the member for Chaffey, being the local member and also a member of the Public Works Committee, and the member for Hammond for both their contributions to this important debate. With those few words, I would also like to thank the committee and the staff of Public Works Committee, and I recommend this report to the house.

Motion carried.