No Salvation in Rivers Running Dry
Narelle Towie Environment Reporter - 21 December 2010
If you ever doubted the severity of WA’s water crisis, take a look at the graph sending shivers down the back of WA’s water chief. It shows rainwater flows-which 1.6 million people from Perth to Mandurah and through parts of the South-West and Goldfields rely on for drinking through the Integrated Water Supply System-are down to a trickle this year. Just 12.7 gigalitres has run into dams compared with the average of 186GL.
The South-West is suffering through its driest year ever, while so far 2010 ranks as the third driest for Perth since records began. Rivers, including the Swan, have come to a near standstill, sparking a spate of water crisis meetings between department chiefs, including the agriculture, health and water departments, and the Swan River Trust.
WA’s acting director of water resource management Greg Davis said that while Perth took 60 per cent of its drinking water from the ground, if the big dry continued next year complete sprinkler bans were likely and licensed users would have their allocations slashed. “We’re been caught out a little bit in that the Bureau of Meteorology didn’t predict that is winter would be as bad as it was,” Mr Davis said. “We are worried and we are putting a major effort into communicating to people that they really need to save as much water as they can and use water as wisely as they can. If we have a similar winter next year we’re going to be in dire straits.”
“All the government agencies are working together on this. Cabinet are considering this and are quite concerned as well.” Premier Colin Barnett has announced a $5 million assistance package for communities in up to 100 drought-affected shires. Meanwhile, algal blooms and salinity problems are beginning to plague rivers as water becomes stagnant from lack of flow.
The Swan River Trust’s river health manager, Shaun Meredith, said stream-flow gauges, measuring water flow, revealed almost every river system in the South-West was running slower than in recorded history. “If we have another dry year like this next year, then there are some pretty scary numbers out there,” he said.
Dr Meredith said that with the Swan River barely flowing, nutrients that would usually be flushed out in winter were likely to cause algal blooms that could be toxic to fish.
Mr Davis said the department had brought forward water-saving strategies that were in development for dealing with climate-change forecasts, which predict a drying of the South-West.