Audit puts salt on the negotiating table
An audit on soil salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia's largest river system, predicts increasing damage to environment and agriculture, warning that water from the lower River Murray could be undrinkable in as little as 50 years time.
The audit, published by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, predicts that salt in the landscape will double in the next 100 years. It calls for action beyond current strategies which, although having an impact, will be overtaken by increasing salinity in the coming decades. The audit also calls for a combined strategy at State and Federal levels.
Raising of the water table, through irrigation and planting of non-native species, brings salt to the surface and into soil and river systems. The Audit found that salt rising to the surface does not get carried to the sea but stays in the landscape.
According to the report, rising salinity is not only a threat to water quality but will impact on structures such as buildings and bridges.
The Queensland Government will undertake a more detailed analysis of salinity in the Queensland part of the Murray-Darling Basin, as a result of the audit. Natural Resources Minister Rod Welford says the Government will implement programs to limit the impact of salinity, but is calling for the support of rural industry and landholders. "We don't propose any kneejerk reactions in Queensland," he said.
"We recognise the problem, we intend to do further work to target those areas that salinity could be a higher risk, but we're working on the whole range, the whole spectrum of sound, sustainable land management."
The commission is preparing a Basin Salinity Management Strategy due in June 2000.