The Coorong and Murray Mouth

For the past couple of days I have been poking around in a strange and interesting part of the country. This is the Coorong and the lower lakes of the Murray.

Driving up from the south it is the Coorong that is first encountered. It is a long (140kms) thin saltwater lagoon, sheltered for its entire length from the sea by a narrow sand dune. It has always been subject to variations in its water level, depending on the flow of water down the Murray river. In periods of drought the water level in the Coorong and the lower lakes (Lakes Alexandrina and Albert) drop naturally. In the last several years of drought the water level has been disastrously low. This has been exacerbated by the over-drawing of water for agricultural purposes throughout the Murray-Darling basin.

Now these waterways are full and this has occurred because of the widespread flooding in this past year in much of the catchment area. Water is now flowing through the Murray mouth into the sea. For several years dredging has been needed to keep the mouth from silting up entirely but that is not required at the moment. People here that I talk to are well pleased that the water is back. The question is: for how long?

To my mind the first priority for the river waters should be to keep the lower lakes full, the riverside forests healthy, the wetlands safe for nesting birdlife. But of course, that is not the way it is. The politicians, bureaucrats and agriculturists have succeeded in putting agricultural demands first. In the case of the cotton irrigators it has been said that “we are selling out the environment in the cause of cheap T-shirts” - there is a lot of truth in that. For those interested, there is a really good recent book - ‘The River’, author Chris Hammer - it is non-judgmental but raises all the issues. It probably should be compulsory reading for city-dwelling Australians. This is an issue that affects us all.

A good thing about travel, it makes you think.

Getting back to the Coorong. Most people drive by and dismiss the area as scrubland. But, if you stop and look around there are really beautiful mixes of colour and form in the vegetation and the strange salty lagoons of water coloured pink. So here are a couple of pictures