Tantangara Dam starving Murrumbidgee River

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Tantangara Dam starving Murrumbidgee River
 
Conservationists and scientists say the Tantangara Dam in the Snowy Mountains is robbing the Murrumbidgee River (pictured right)  of water, allowing less than half the environmental flows necessary for its health.

The Snowy Scientific Committee is a six-member committee set up to advise the NSW government on releasing environmental flows from the Snowy Hydro Scheme. It has released a report which says the river is ''starved of water'' by the dam and is in ''an administrative and managerial void'', without a proper river management strategy and monitoring because the NSW Office of Water does not have the necessary resources.

The Snowy Scientific Committee’s report to the NSW Water Administration Ministerial Corporation is titled The adequacy of environmental releases to the  upper Murrumbidgee River (available at http://www.snowyssc.org/pdf/ssc_4-2010-adequacy-e-releases-to-upper-murrumbidgee.pdf) It paints a depressing picture of lack of management planning, lack of commitment to previously agreed objectives and lack of resources to meet those commitments. Conclusions in the report state:

'The adequacy of the institutional arrangements in relation to environmental releases to the upper Murrumbidgee River is poor, which is disappointing.
'The three government agreement reached and recorded in the SWIOID [Snowy Water Inquiry and Outcomes Implementation Deed ] allocates only 27 GL to the river which is less than half of what the river needs. The low environmental releases are supplemented by riparian releases but these are unlikely to do much to address the shortfall in environmental volume relative to requirements, however the benefits of the riparian releases are likely to be small (because they are so low), temporary (being restricted to certain times of the year) and limited (the target being Cooma water supply), so of little benefit downstream of Mittagang Crossing. Moreover, the environmental releases are currently not much protected, and could be totally harvested. Regrettably, the effectiveness of the releases is not known and will remain unknowable until a monitoring program with a flow-response feedback loop is securely established.
'The upper Murrumbidgee appears to be in an administrative and managerial void, with no Water Sharing Plan (hence no protection), no river management strategy or ecological guidelines (no direction for management) and no means of responding to future stresses and demands.'

The Snowy River Alliance’s Vice-Chairwoman, Louise Crisp says the report shows how desperate the situation is for the rivers of the Snowy Mountains. She said it is a sign authorities are failing to act, are not delivered on the requirements under the inter-governmental agreement, have not provided the resources which they're obliged to under that agreement and have not prepared water management plans for the montane rivers.

River ecologist and Associate Professor at La Trobe University, Doctor John Harris, says scientists now know more about how rivers affect the environment and that the he hopes government will take more notice of scientists’ knowledge and advice.
Speaking on ABC Radio in January he said "It goes back to the designing of the Snowy Scheme back in the 50s when there was general ignorance and pretty wide-spread lack of care about the condition of our rivers... then, that was understandable and their knowledge was limited, but since that time of course we have learned a great deal since then, and the community now cares a great deal more than it did, I think, about the conditions of our rivers."


Source: NSW CFA