philperth2010 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2012 at 11:00am:



Yes they have in the past...and this has been a direct result of government policies. A lot of the original land grants were on the basis that the land was cleared...if you did not clear the land you could lose your grant. Successive Departments of Agricultute have also encouraged land clearing and irrigation so broadacre irrigation crops such as cotton could be planted. And a lot of these bigger operations are run by big corporations based in cities and overseas who don't give a flying f..k about agriculture...just money. Governments in the past have also overallocted water and actually ecouraged and profited from the taking up of water licences. Water the deserts and they shall bloom mentality and the wholesale selling out of Australian agriculture to big and often foreign corporations was, and to an extent still is the governmental policy that caused 95% of the problems we have today. The change in this thinking has only been a recent phenomenon But hey, no sorry we made a big mistake...not when you can blame those that were led and encouraged by us to do exactly like they were told and what was at the time best scientific and political practice.

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Mixing your facts a bit here. There are two types of anthropogenic salinity, dryland and irrigation.
Dryland is caused by the encouraged practice of land-clearing. The trees pumped the water down and when they were removed the water rose up bringing the salt with it.
Irrigation salinty is caused by to higher inputs of water onto the land increasing recharge and causing the water table to rise and when this happens it brings the salt with it. Water evaporates leaving the salt on the surface.

Water has always flowed into rivers and streams from groundwater sources. It is why rivers continue to flow in dry times and is why water is not "used" by agriculture any more than water is used by forests. Water that makes it way into the groundwater systems from irrigation recharges streams and rivers in the same way. So a great proportion of this water is recycled. Most of the salinity in streams and rivers comes from surface run-off with dissolved salts that have been left on the surface. Urban use especially in coastal cities pumps used water out to sea.

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This is true so probably the best solution is reduce population but the government is not doing that either...quite the reverse. 
As for water quality tell you what, I'm happy to drink a glass of water out of my local creek if you chug a glass from the Swan and lets see who gets sick first.

tonegunman1 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2012 at 4:02pm:


I think part of the problem is most people on here want ONE solution that comes without any negatives. No such utopian solution exists. ALl solutions have drawbacks. The greens therefore determine that we shoudl all die. responsible solutions however mean that we choose the best alternative(s) and then manage the negatives. Yes, dryland salinity is a big problem but nothing short of returning 80% of the land to trees is going to reverse that and that means we can feed ourselves. Thats agood Greenie solution but the rest of us realise that we cat do that so we MANAGE the problem.

longweekend58 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2012 at 4:28pm:


Returning 80% of the land to trees is not that easy anyway. Most trees you plant will die and those that live will be next to useless.  It will be a long and drawn out process. The first part of managing a problem is to stop making it worse. But we only want to talk about a small proportion of what is wrong and quarantine other things....and that does not manage anything. Trees are not the answer everywhere either as we have this notion that when europeans came here there were trees everwhere but this is incorrect as there were also extensive grasslands. The trouble is that our lords and disasters want the problems "fixed" as quickly and as cheaply as possible. This is only likely to make things worse.
You can't fill the bucket by making more holes in it.

Dont worry..Abbott will repeal everything when in govt and find the money the way he did when he was a Minister in the Howard govt by slashing spending on public health and public education.
Palmer, Twiggy, Gina and Porky Packer will be rolling around naked in pies and your kids will be begging for food on street corners.

philperth2010 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2012 at 4:37pm:


Yes and the Yarragadee aquifer is much more likely to get a salt intrusion from the ocean from being drawn down too far by urban users...if your worried about salt. But you also get surface water and desal.
You seem to be placing inordinate blame however on farmers for both quantity taken and resultant water quality and you are being more than a little unfair. The point I was making is that those people who live in rural environments are generally far better custodians of water supplies...and the proof is in the drinking.

Put a halt to all economic related skills immigration, cap political donations,  legislate the banning of corporations, build more dams and power stations, subsidize petrol, abolish privatization, deregister the Greens, set up a permanent Royal Commission into Political corruption, stamp out classism in politics, triple all pensions and allowances, abolish work for the dole, abolish all coercion to take casual jobs, ban weekend trading, abolish private corporate ownership of any industry, resource, service, bank or major economic asset, ban the rich from the community game - Aussie rules...ect, ect you get the picture.

I have two rainwater tanks and the water is much better for drinking than the crap out of the tap!!!