A new body in the water landscape has recently formed, Creek Country Alliance. This Alliance is an extensive cross section of community representing residents, local government, education, indigenous, small business, environment and agriculture, in an effort to provide a voice for all communities affected by the complex issues surrounding water management by Government at both state and federal levels.
The driving forces for the formation of this new alliance are two of the three currently proposed Sustainable Diversion Limit (SDL) Projects listed for the Yanco Creek.
The two projects of concern, The Yanco Regulator Project and The Murrumbidgee Effluent Creeks Project have been put forward as business cases by the Department of Industry Water (DOI Water) and Water NSW. These projects are two of many projects put up by the states to federal government.
Collectively these projects aim to take an additional 450 gigalitres GL’s on top of the extensive amounts of water taken already in recent years from our waterways as part of the Murray Darling Basin Plan (MDBP). These projects if implemented will impact on all associated creeks, environs, towns and communities between the rivers Murrumbidgee and Murray.
The Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council has approved the two aforementioned projects affecting the Yanco Creek System pending further consultation.
The Yanco Regulator and the Modernisation of Effluent Creeks projects have the potential to cause devastation for all communities that rely on the creeks which run over the natural floodplains between the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers. We have already witnessed and borne the brunt of disastrous outcomes as a microcosm (perhaps the governments’ test run) in our environment already in The Forest Creek, Wilson Anabranch and Old Man Creek closures and are not willing to stand by and watch the same happen on a much larger scale to over thousands of kilometres of crucial creek corridors.
At a glance the proposed Yanco Regulator Project is a $52m dollar concrete plug in the top end of the Yanco Creek. This water from our creeks is to be taken leaving our creeks to the mercy of the governments’ will to run the creek wet and dry as they see fit. So we are informed to date the water from our creeks is to be diverted for the perceived benefit of putting our water into the Murrumbidgee River for the Mid Murrumbidgee wetlands further downstream. This effectively is killing one established environment to artificially water a dry swamp.
The Effluents Project is designed to put less water in the top end of the Yanco Creek (endangering our identified Trout Cod Nurseries, platypus habitat and the environs of numerous other threatened and endangered species) and bringing that water into the system further downstream through a series of irrigation channels and drains delivered by the irrigation corporations. Not only is the issue of drying the creek to run the water in channels a problem but this proposed project will deliver into this otherwise clear creek system a plethora of aquatic weeds, which the landholders along the creeks have been paying to eradicate since 2006 through their own environmental levy.
Further, terminology in these proposals is of grave concern to the alliance, two in particular which refer to a ‘pre-development wetting and drying regime’ for the creek system and equally concerning that the Yanco Creek is effectively being seen as an irrigation channel by the authorities.
Our Yanco Creek and all those that stem from the Yanco are not just a conduit for water, they are thriving corridors of habitat that provide the vital web in our ecosystem between crops and bees, communities of fish, mammals, marsupials, birds and humans alike. It is our will as a community to preserve and sustain this significant creek environment. Corridors which provides habitat over thousands of kilometres for an extensive variety of native flora and fauna, of which so many are listed as endangered or threatened. Do we further compound Australia’s dire world record for annihilation of species by proposing such reprehensible government proposals, let alone remain silent while our rural communities already affected by drought suffer further insult to injury?
We must support everyone that has invested in this region in their efforts to provide for our nation and the world. We know too well that when our farmers suffer as they are right now due to the governments’ compromised water management policies so too the local communities feel the pain; businesses close, families move away, schools and local sporting clubs diminish in participation - as we know, in short it has a devastating knock on affect.
The Creek Country Alliance wants the government to stop wasting and better manage the water for all communities between the rivers.
The Alliance welcomes all groups and individuals to join this alliance. We need a united front to change the rules in relation to water in our region.
The environment within this creek system is amazing, take out water and it will die a slow death and in turn our communities will become ghost towns.
An invitation to learn about the projects that are set to impact our water supply for all communities between the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers comes from the Department of Industry Water (DOI Water). Town meetings are being held in Conargo and Jerilderie at which DOI Water “will provide an overview of the proposals and would like to hear your concerns and aspirations” with regard to the projects proposed for the Yanco Creek.
- Conargo – When: Tuesday 4th December – Where: Conargo Hall, Conargo Rd, Conargo – Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm
- Jerilderie – When: Wednesday 5th December – Where: Jerilderie Civic Hall, 37 Jerilderie Street, Jerilderie – Time: 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Please contact an alliance member below and or attend the upcoming meetings with Department of Industry Water to find out more.
- Jim Muirhead 0429 576 599
- Gwen McLaughlin 0427 262 247
- Helene Mortlock 0409 029 564
Summaries of all the SDL projects are available here
