The Darling river fish kill.

Yes John, I understand that, but remember too that the cotton farmers or irrigation farmers would probably be a better description, would be helping to fund/pay for it through they’re water rights etc.
Another option would be I guess proper channeling from high rainfall areas. Be it piped or a channel, or a combination of both, depending on terrain, I guess it would be a cheaper option.
Personnally, I think they should be charged an arm and a leg to get water to them anyway. If you need THAT much water to grow something, then why should they be collectively allowed to destroy basically an ecosystem and not pay for an alternative solution?.
One way or another it needs fixing.
I’m sure whatever the extra costs are, we, as the consumer will end up paying for it anyway.

You have to remember that most of the irrigation schemes in the basin were promoted, designed and pushed by the various state governments. Getting people to set up an enterprise, often at considerable cost and working , in many cases for a couple of generations, and then changing the rules, cutting allocations, and raising water prices would be called a scam if it was anyone except the government doing it!

And it affects not only the irrigators, but the towns that have grown up supporting them.

Worth remembering that a significant part of promoting these irrigation areas was to push the orchardists and horticulturalists out of the Sydney and Melbourne areas so that the farmland could be covered with houses. As an example, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in the 1930s spelled the end of orchards in the Sydney Hills District, although some lingered on into the sixties.

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Originally Posted by trout1105

This is Precisely why they shouldn't be allowed to "Rape" the river, They need to find another way to farm.
Here in the West irrigation is rare except at Kununurra most likely because we don't have the river systems that the Eastern states do and our farmers do rather well and prosper because they are bloody good at dry land farming.

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Saw a report on Landline last year re a property in the Pilbarra installing dozens of pivot irrigators and pumping gazillions of litres out of the artesian basin to grow feed and intensively farm cattle.

It's happening everywhere.

Queensland floods unlikely to aid Murray-Darling Basin waterways but Lake Eyre could benefit - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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Originally Posted by numpty

Saw a report on Landline last year re a property in the Pilbarra installing dozens of pivot irrigators and pumping gazillions of litres out of the artesian basin to grow feed and intensively farm cattle.

It's happening everywhere.

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At least they are not killing a river and murdering millions of fish[bigwhistle]

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Originally Posted by trout1105

At least they are not killing a river and murdering millions of fish[bigwhistle]

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But they will be making a significant impact on the natural environment. As a race, we need to leave as small a footprint as possible.

What's this then? The regulatory authority not regulating! Unbelievable? Not when you read of it happening with the non regulation of the banks and the complete failure of the state and Fed. authorities to control car/caravan/RV makers and their dealers when it comes to protecting consumers from faulty products as they are supposed to.
Apparently one answer for the banking sector is yet more regulators in the form of a 3 man/person panel...... how many hordes of seat polishers will they employ and how long will it remain at just 3 regulators?
How many times are we going to read of those people employed by us not doing the job they're very well paid to do? And what's going to happen to make them do it?
A 3 person panel of overseers! Bah humbug.
Not one of the lazy "out to lunch with the bankers/rivers/consumer affair regulators" will suffer any form of punishment at all the same as not one of the hierarchy of the banks will.
As one bloke employed in the area of consumer affairs in WA said to me when I made a complaint about a certain dealer ...."Mr so and so (name withheld) is an icon of the industry and I'm wary of approaching him about this"!
My language in reply was quite fruity..... but we eventually got satisfaction even though we received threats of legal action which we ignored.
AlanH.

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Originally Posted by V8Ian

But they will be making a significant impact on the natural environment. As a race, we need to leave as small a footprint as possible.

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If the footprint is "Sustainable" and proven scientifically to be so then there isn't a problem But growing crops that need irrigation should be grown in areas than can supply the necessary water without devastating the environment, This is NOT the case in the Murray/Darling basin.
Up in Kununurra and the Kimberlie/Pilbara area there is surplus water and plenty of room for expansion and every year (Even in a Crap wet season) the water is replenished in lake Argyle/lake Kununurra also the Pilbara and there is always a flow of water downstream from the diversion dam to keep the river healthy.
This is most definitely the case in the Murray/Darling basin.
As a race we need to grow food and other products to be able to sustain our growing population So our "Footprint" will only get bigger at the end of the day, But we have to learn to do it "Sustainably".
At the moment we are Crap at doing this and "Hard" decisions Have to be made so that we can fix our "Stuff Ups" made in the past and move forward without destroying our fragile environment[thumbsupbig]

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As one bloke employed in the area of consumer affairs in WA said to me when I made a complaint about a certain dealer ...."Mr so and so (name withheld) is an icon of the industry and I'm wary of approaching him about this"!

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Pitiful response! I have known "Icons" of the Air Conditioning Industry who were absolutely bloody creeps & I wouldn't have trusted any of them as far as I could throw a Concrete ****house.

So, Icons are above the law eh?

:soapbox:

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Originally Posted by 4bee

Pitiful response! I have known "Icons" of the Air Conditioning Industry who were absolutely bloody creeps & I wouldn't have trusted any of them as far as I could throw a Concrete ****house.

So, Icons are above the law eh?

:soapbox:

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Quite a few 'successful' business people are successful purely because they are borderline psychopathic/sociopathic narcissists, AKA as arseholes.
Add quite a few pollies to that list too.
We've all known and met them.