DESPERATE times call for desperate measures, so to cope with Australia’s worst drought in 20 years why not just turn the country’s rivers around so they flow into the parched interior instead of out to sea? To the horror of local scientists, the idea is being backed by some of Australia’s largest companies and media networks. The scientists, however, condemn the plan as “stupid” and “irresponsible”.
Australia is the driest continent on Earth, and the current drought has hit hard. Six out of seven states are in their driest six-month period since 1982, and some areas are the driest they have been in a hundred years. Agricultural output has slumped accordingly, with the drought predicted to cut $3.8 billion from the national GDP this year.
With no end to the crisis in sight, Australian businesses have decided that it’s time to take action. Earlier this month some of Australia’s most influential talk show hosts joined media mogul Kerry Packer and other business leaders to form the Farmhand Foundation, with the aim of finding a long-term solution to the water problem.
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Chief among their proposals is the idea of taking water where it is plentiful and channelling it to where it is scarce. That means diverting several major rivers, including the Clarence, the Pioneer, the Burdekin and the Ord – a massive engineering project likely to cost billions of dollars. “They can all be turned inland and used,” says radio commentator Alan Jones. “And then you can flood your river system in drought time. Dam the water. Flood the river system. Irrigate off the rivers. Why can’t we use the surplus water?”
The reason you can’t, say environmental scientists, is that it would do irreparable harm to Australia’s fragile environment. “It would put a permanent drought on the coastlines, and for coastal fisheries that would be a disaster,” says Tim Flannery, director of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide. “It would increase the salination problem. Already there is too much water in the Murray Darling Basin and that is bringing underground salt into the topsoil.”
Despite the many arguments against the plan, he remains worried that the government could be swayed by the Farmhand Foundation. “I am very concerned that people like Alan Jones have the ear of senior politicians,” says Flannery.
To fight back, Flannery and other researchers have formed the Wentworth Group. They now plan to issue their own proposals to Prime Minister John Howard, urging a series of more practical measures to deal with the drought. These include the replanting of trees, which get their water from deep underground, and alternative farming methods.
The debate has enthralled Australians, many of whom see it as a confrontation between cold science and popular instinct. “Maybe turning rivers around is a dopey idea. So what?” wrote columnist Miranda Devine in Sydney’s Sun-Herald. “Mankind would never have landed on the Moon if the pragmatists had prevailed.”