From AdelaideNow, today Nov 13

“FEDERAL Regional Minister Simon Crean has criticised the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for being “one dimensional” with the way it prepared its controversial plan to cut water allocations and save the basin.
The Australian Conservation Foundation has also attacked the MDBA for a lack of adequate modellng in its plan …..”

Having developed the infrastructure, the plantings and water distribution system for the Ramco Heights Irrigation area near Waikerie in the 60′s, the River has been a major part of my life.

It was not the “lack of adequate modeling” of the Basin Authority but the lack of proportion. The opposite to cutting 4000 gigs from the flow for any reason was to provide it or more by advocating the construction of the means to do so.

Strange, that a 60′s survey plan submitted to State Government to bring water from Argyle to Burke is ignored or the practical suggestions since then to channel water from Queensland as insurance to waterproof the nations food bowl are not even considered. Yet the reality is “drought and flooding rains”.

The means to offset the droughts have been pushed aside for an idiotic notion that by paying millions to buy water licenses during a drought from irrigators of food and putting them to the wall, the river would suddenly flow?

What a monumental waste of time and money this has been when an engineering survey for supply from the North could have been completed in less time at a fraction of the cost for a project no more difficult than the Snowy.

To view story and comments online go to: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/in-depth/crean-critical-of-basin-rescue-plan/story-e6frebju-1225952874011