Life on the West Island - The wide green land

Over the past 10 days, Life on the West Island has traversed some 3,500km of the inland of our nation, mostly on long, flat roads through thinly populated areas of the Murray/Darling Basin. Although many thousands of years ago these expanses were regularly flooded by the West Island’s greatest rivers, they are now normally hot and dry, with sparse vegetation except for the beautiful spreading River Red Gums, which survive along watercourses that flow spasmodically when there are rare rain events. Since European settlement, most of this country has been left fallow or occupied by sheep and cattle farms with large acreages and relatively few stock.

But times have changed, and much of this region is now blanketed by huge irrigated corporate farms, mostly owned by large foreign conglomerates. They use expensive resources and massive equipment to irrigate enormous areas, growing cotton, almonds and rice and using a gigantic chunk of the nation’s scarce water supplies. One such property now on the market near Hay has 200 square kilometres of irrigated cotton crops (that’s almost 80 square miles). But this property is by no means the largest irrigated holding in the area; one single property is almost five times its size and stores around 460 gigalitres of water – that is, almost as much as Sydney Harbour.

Because we have had La Nina weather systems for the past three years, this vast inland region has experienced rainfalls well above average, and even the non-irrigated dry lands are showing tinges of green, with occasional clumps of wildflowers. But all of that is about to end with the return of El Nino meaning that the inevitable dry weather and even drought will soon be back. It is during those times that the effects of the enormous amounts of water extracted from the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers for irrigation are felt most acutely in towns like Hay, Narrandera and Bourke.

All of these towns – and many like them – are suffering from losses of population and the consequent closure of banks, retail businesses and community services. This shows in the vacant houses and streets and the gradual decline of community facilities such as parks, playgrounds and health services. Some river communities have also experienced widespread fish kills and rapid decline in the quality of town water, including very high levels of salt and agricultural chemicals.

While the huge farming enterprises have brought some income and jobs to surrounding communities, their high levels of mechanisation and economies of scale have also had the reverse effect of eliminating farm jobs on smaller holdings and work for small-scale mechanical and engineering firms in country towns. Many of the mega-farms have their own airstrips or heliports and fly in both workers and supplies. 

Out on the plains, we encountered many of these huge corporate businesses. Passing one massive almond farm between Balranald and Hay, we measured a single side of the orchard at over three kilometres long, with trees stretching to beyond the horizon. There must have been many thousands of these trees, all guzzling precious water to keep them alive and producing fruit.

Of course, crops like almonds and cotton are both useful and profitable – and the rice produced in the region is no doubt welcomed by hungry consumers on the West Island and overseas. But the cost to the environment of producing these cash crops is very high. Not only do they diminish flows in our rivers, but the soils on the plains are not productive unless they are continually enriched with superphosphate and chemical fertilisers, manufactured at significant costs to the environment and transported overland in huge gas-guzzling B-double trucks.

While water is fairly plentiful at present, during the last drought river flows were reduced to trickles and water had to be trucked in to many towns to provide essential supplies for residential and domestic use. Adelaide, the driest city, in the driest state, in the driest nation, faced water restrictions and low water quality.

The state government there has long campaigned for greater restrictions on use of river water by the upstream corporate irrigators. As well, Adelaide and Port Augusta have implemented costly but effective water desalination plants to try to offset the dire shortages of potable water. The Spencer Gulf city’s energy plant is powered by a massive solar mirror concentrator, which has now allowed it to develop a lucrative hydroponic truss tomato industry. Perhaps it is an ill wind that blows no good – or at very least a slow flow of water which has evolved into a lucrative stream of solar power!

Our trip across the vast expanses of the Murray/Darling Basin was both enlightening and sobering. While it showed the risks to the environment of overexploiting our scarce resources, it also pointed to the way ahead in which the West Island might be able to transition to clean, green energy and move away from using polluting fossil fuels to power the nation’s modern economy. Then we might really be able to celebrate a wide green land…