Sisters Judy Bailey and Pip Goldman are the fourth generation to live on the property at Collungulllie, west of Wagga Wagga. Their father, Ian Cameron, kept meticulous records and his diaries are frequently referred to. It is having access to these historic records which cause anger and a sense of futility as they observe the systematic destruction of the Old Man Creek.
“This is where the sulky crossing used to be”, described Mrs Bailey, ‘where there was a gradual decline in the bank. During the last drought you could see the sleepers laid on the bottom of the creek and on this southern side, there was the equivalent gentle slope so the horses could easily move to the floodplain. Now, it is a five metre high steep bank so nothing can cross there any more”.
Mrs Goldman’s husband, David, a former valuer with the NSW government, has been critical of the water accounting practices used by the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) since the inception of the Water Act in 2007.
“The act was created on the premise that the River Murray was dying during the height of the millennium drought. Of course the water levels were lower as there wasn’t much rain for years and dams and rivers dry up, that is perfectly natural”, Mr Goldman said.
‘But, this Act was introduced, based on flawed and corrupt science which included that the estuarine Koorong section at the mouth of the River Murray could only be kept open by frequent, fast pulses of fresh water from it and the Murrumbidgee river”.
“As a result of these environmental flows which are more frequent than naturally occurring floods, with higher volumes and flow rates, this creek is crumbling in at a rate of about two metres a year. This is not the only waterway being gutted and destroyed in this manner and, in spite of innumerable meetings with politicians and executive of the MDBA, they refuse to listen to people being affected by their policies or change them”.
As well as the damage caused to banks, known as slumping, the Goldmans and Mrs Bailey have another ‘envirionmental’ issue to cope with. Lippia was introduced into Australia as an amenity plant, specifically as a lawn alternative. It is prostrate, has a small pink flower and the capacity when broken into small pieces, to establish root systems very quickly. Since the 2010 flood through the Murrumbidgee river system, lippia is now entrenched and covers millions of hectares. Its capacity to proliferate in a range of conditions is resulting in it preventing the revival of phalaris, treefoil, nardoo, couch, rushes and clover on the floodplains.
“We first noticed lippia in a small way which wasn’t too much of a problem” said Mrs Goldman. “However, with every successive environmental flow and flood, the pieces of lippia are moved further across the floodplain where it establishes very quickly. In the north of NSW , lippia was used to stabilise channel banks and agricultural extension staff encouraged irrigators to plant it”.
“We are looking for a biological control for it but, so far, haven’t found anything practical or effective so we’ve resorted to trying to spray it out which is at our expense”.
Mr Goldman explained the family’s cattle and hay-making enterprise continues to be adversely affected by the regular high-level flows. “It doesn’t matter what you call them, be they environmental, sustainable diversional limits or unregulated flows, since the increased number of high-volume releases from Burrinjuck (dam), and the amount of land that goes underwater, we can’t graze cattle on the frontage as we have been. We used to cut lucerne hay in our top paddocks to sell”.
“But, now, due to all the releases from Burrinjuck, our cattle have to be moved to the higher paddocks which mean they eat what we were going to make hay from. Between the flooding and lippia, we have to buy in fodder as the amount of feed for the cattle has diminished drastically”. he said.
“The MDBA claim they implement policies so the triple bottom line is the outcome. From our experiences here, and similarly for our neighbours, there is no interest in what we landholders think as MDBA personnel have not displayed any genuine interest into what is happening on the ground”.
“They have their agenda to move as much fresh water as possible through the Murray and Murrumbidgee systems to keep flushing out the Coorong which is a physical impossibility. The fact that 60 per cent of the water from the source of the Murray to the mouth is lost from seepage and evaporation demonstrates this idealistic plan can’t work. To further prove this dredging of the Murray mouth commenced again on the 9th January”.
Mrs Bailey summed up what many landholders are feeling. “We love our property and our family have cared for it for more than a hundred years”, she said. “We feel absolutely helpless about the ecological destruction of the Old Man Creek with all these ‘flows’ to keep the environment alive. That is a nonsense and with the next release of water in the autumn, I predict at least another 20 trees will topple into the creek and another few thousand tonnes of soil will be washed away so where is the so-called care for our riparian zones?”
“This is neither sustainable, environmental or justifiable and yet we, like thousands of other landholders in the Murray Darling Basin, are powerless to prevent further damage”, Mr Goldman concluded.