The Broken Hill water pipeline has been exposed as a vital element in
a plan to sacrifice the Lower Darling and Murray rivers to the
interests of the cotton and mining industries.
A 2016 business case report into the $500 million Broken Hill
pipeline, made public by Independent New South Wales MLC Justin Field on
August 14, has revealed the project was built to meet the needs of
irrigators and mines while ignoring impacts on the environment and
regional towns in New South Wales and Queensland that are run out of
water.
The report focused on shifting the water source for Broken Hill, in
far west NSW, from the Menindee Lakes to the Murray River to free up
extraction for irrigators further upstream and provide water for two new
mines.
Quoting figures from the Cotton Growers Association, the report said
that going ahead with the pipeline and drying up the Menindee Lakes
would put 50 billion litres of water into irrigator dams in the northern
reaches of the Darling River, contributing an estimated $120 million to
agricultural output.
Field said: “Any way you cut this, the pipeline is a half-billion
dollar gift to Northern Basin irrigators,” adding this is “a disaster”
for the dying Darling River.
Field said the business case report echoes findings of the recently released Natural Resources Commission review of the Barwon-Darling Water Sharing Plan,
which found over-extraction by irrigators and other users had brought
forward drought conditions in parts of the river system by three years.
“The reality is that this [drought] has been a manufactured crisis,”
Field said. “Broken Hill didn’t have a water security problem until
upstream irrigators were allowed by the NSW government to suck the river
system.
“This pipeline allows that unsustainable water use to continue and
risks the long-term health of the river and the Menindee Lakes.”
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