Of all the seasons, winter on the river is a particularly fine time for dogs. The mornings are brisk, with frost on the grasses and steam rising off the river as the warm water meets the cold air. There are no wrigglies to step around and the picnickers and party-goers stay home, so we can roam as we please and there’s not much rubbish in the way.
What spoils it these days are increasingly frequent “environmental flows” where the federal government’s agent, the environmental water holder, sends vast lumps of water down the river, claiming to mimic “the natural flow.”
He gave us a big one from mid-June to mid-July, which knocked over the vegetation on the lower banks, leaving them denuded again.
And in just a week or so, he’s fiddling with the river again: The Boss tells me the next “environmental flow” is a three-weeker – snuffing out any chance of re-growth.
The river level is then supposed to be back to normal by September 9 - but no, just eight days later, without any time at all for the river banks to dry out or the grasses to grow – there will be “a late spring fresh” for a whole month, until October 20.
People who don't know the river like I do might think that “environmental water” means it must be a good thing for the environment in general and our beautiful Goulburn River in particular, but The Boss and I have watched this constant erosion of the banks of the river instead.
Each time there is an environmental flow, our Catchment Management Authority has the unenviable task of justifying it - this time, it says the June flush was “a cue” to warn breeding platypus that the river might rise in Spring. Some cue.
And the next two flushes are apparently needed because this year isn’t quite as wet as the last few. “Following several wet years with rainfall and full storages leading to high flows in the Goulburn River over winter and Spring, this year lower flows have led to the need for higher flows to connect wetlands in the Mid-Goulburn River.”
Trouble is, you can’t connect many wetlands at all with 9000 megalitres a day. Historically, the river would see a moderate flood every 3-4 years - which would connect the wetlands - and a big one every 20. In between, the odd rain event might lift the level for a few days here and there.
But the CMA says: “Connecting low lying wetlands in the mid Goulburn River will ....inundate aquatic vegetation in connected wetlands to avoid exposure to frost...” We haven’t heard that one before but the frosts are pretty well finished anyway.
And the CMA says the late Spring fresh will start just before the school holidays “to minimise risk to school holiday campers.” Although it will be over in time “for lower bank vegetation to establish” before Inter-valley Transfers start in early December. Except, that is, if conditions change, “the spring fresh may be delayed to finish late October and a spawning fresh delivered in November.”
So if they can’t allow time for vegetation to stabilise the banks it becomes “a spawning fresh.” The thing is, the level is going up and down many times a year, not for the health of the river but because they have all this environmental water stored in Eildon, taking up space. And the CMA has to tie itself in knots.
The idea of environmental water was to help the environment, but all the planned projects to feed truly beneficial volumes of water into our extensive wetlands along the Goulburn and Murray floodplains are on hold now, after Tania Plibersek legislated to buy back even more irrigators’ water late last year, without the agreement of all the states, and send it to South Australia.
The federal government owned more than 35% of the water in Eildon at June 30, but no-one can tell me or The Boss how they can responsibly use the water they already have to benefit the environment, let alone add more water to it.
After a century of co-operative agreements among the states – including the Murray Darling Plan – this was the first time the federal government has forced river legislation through without the agreement of all the states.
Victoria was bitterly opposed to it, despite both governments being Labor. It turns out that “environmentaI water” is all about keeping South Australia’s huge lower lakes artificially “fresh” for tourists and local residents when they were historically the Murray’s unimpeded estuary. A few swinging seats in Adelaide will do that. Woof!