Sharman Stone MP

The toxic black water event still scaring the Barmah Forest has been highlighted by Sharman Stone, Federal Member for Murray in a recent speech in parliament where she called for the Murray Darling Basin Plan to ensure the skilled, carefully managed handling of environmental flows.

 

“For the past two and a half months the biggest red gum forest in the world, Barmah Millewa, which includes 26,958 hectares of freshwater wetlands, has been experiencing the worse black water event ever recorded.

 

 “A natural black water event occurs when there is vegetation suddenly inundated in warm weather. Micro organisms use up the carbon leached from the vegetation and at the same time use up the oxygen.

 

“The water becomes black, toxic and de-oxygenated and wildlife dies or species like the Murray Crayfish are forced to leave their habitats.

 

“We now have the tragic situation of the Murray Crayfish, an endangered species, trying to escape by crawling up the river banks. The grasslands are dying because the vegetation is inundated by the toxic water and can not survive.

 

“In pre-colonial times the local indigenous people and more recently cattlemen would undertake regular cold burns or mosaic burning and this would keep the amount of leaf litter down. Cattle grazing also kept vegetation down. We have neglected to bring these fire-use skills forward into the 21^st century and there’s estimated to be 20 tonnes of leaf litter per hectare now accumulated.

 

Dr Sharman Stone said it was essential that black water that had mass killings of species were avoided. The black water events become toxic when the environmental flows and the eco-system itself is mismanaged.

 

“It’s not just a case of saying ‘here is 7,000 gigalitres of extra environmental water and that is going to solve the problems of the Murray Darling Basin Rivers’. There needs to be skill and expertise in managing the environmental flows around the Basin. The skill and common sense seem to be missing.

 

 “If we do not have skilled environmental flow management, and don’t take a good hard look at how we currently manage environmental flows and the catchment, we will see more devastation and loss as the years go by.”

 

“The Labor Government must get smarter. They need to consult the locals, who appear to know more about managing these systems than the public servants,” Sharman Stone said.