Letters to the editor

Yet that’s what appears to be Rochester’s fate now.

Anyone who owns an asset in Rochester must be wondering what this will do to their investment.

This will drive down the willingness to build a business there and will encourage residents not to return.

Our community is stronger than that, we showed it in November and December of last year, so let’s show it again.

Let’s push the plan to mitigate the chances of flooding.

Let’s show this is a safe town in which to live, and a great community of which to be part.

We are not a political ball to be kicked around — this is fair, humane and progressive thinking.

There is no way we can completely remove the risk of another event like the one last year, but we can significantly reduce the chances.

Governments permitted us to build homes, operate businesses, attend schools and operate hospitals in this area — they cannot turn their back on us.

People have lived in this location, safely, for 180 years.

Things are changing, the climate is changing, so we need to change the way we manage the risks we are going to face.

We had ample warning of the impending flood threat.

Sandbags were filled, the elderly were evacuated.

The community took the advice to prepare seriously.

And then 92,000 megalitres flowed over Campaspe Weir on October 14 (Goulburn-Murray Water estimate).

Of which 28,000ML broke the banks in the 4km below the weir, threatening the west from an unanticipated direction, and the east, much more predictably, following previous flood courses, just much higher than anticipated.

Mathematically, 100,000ML of space in Eppalock would have been sufficient to avert the threat and keep the river below major flood levels throughout September and October.

If water had been released at a flow rate of 20,000ML a day for the five days before the rain event, 100,000ML of air space could have been created in the dam to reduce the size of the flood event.

Yes, we would have still seen minor, to moderate, flood levels — but certainly not the major inundation within the town.

The rain was forecast and imminent, and yes, precautions could have been taken — if there was a spill mechanism in Eppalock.

Similar to other procedures being carried out other major dams across the Murray-Darling catchment at this time.

Sufficient water has flowed into Eppalock since the flood event to replenish irrigation water, ensuring farmers would not be negatively impacted by the megalitres dumped as part of the preventative strategy.

A release mechanism can be built for Eppalock.

This flood management would have benefits for property owners all along the Campaspe, including farmers, rural households and Echuca residents.

And this is not just about Rochester.

The environmental damage caused by a longer, controlled release would be far less than that from the fast, major flood we experienced.

Eppalock was built for two reasons: flood mitigation and irrigation.

We need to address both.

And we need to do it now.

Stuart Murray,

Rochester Flood Mitigation Group

Victorians need relief from rising bills

The numbers are in, with reports Victorians will now be slapped with annual energy bills of up to $4000, mounting more stress on families in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.

This is nothing groundbreaking, many have been experiencing this increasing financial pressure for months.

Despite struggling now, Victorians are being told to wait in the hope some assistance may be made available when state and federal budgets are announced in the middle of the year.

One-off payments to Victorians will offer some relief for household bills, but they are just a Band-Aid solution, buying time between bill cycles as costs continue to skyrocket.

Victorians are being strung along by a Labor Party that is more focused on spin than substance, touting the return of the SEC and a hurried transition to renewable energy that threatens the reliability of our grid while crushing Victorians’ household budgets.

Families need financial relief through policies that will drive down and keep down energy bills, not handouts to cover up poor policy decisions.

Peter Walsh,

Victorian Member for Murray Plains

Forget the games, politicians urged

I understand the political process and the games that politicians play. I also understand how they can be, shall we say, ‘loose with the truth’ to suit personal and political agendas. But surely we must draw a line at deliberately pedalling information that is proven to be inaccurate.

Last week, the South Australian Water Minister Susan Close, ahead of the meeting of state and federal water ministers, stated there was “no evidence of (water) buybacks harming river communities”.

Might I respectfully suggest the minister read some of the social and economic reports that have been prepared on impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in particular water buybacks, on some of these communities.

Let’s take the community of Wakool, as an example. It has seen closure of businesses and sporting clubs and decline of numerous services throughout the Basin Plan’s implementation.

A once thriving primary school has far fewer students and therefore there are fewer teachers; that’s what happens when population decreases due to government policy.

Or how about the communities of Berrigan and Finley.

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s own community profiles showed a workforce decrease of almost 40 per cent from 2011 to 2016.

I presume Ms Close believes it was purely coincidental that this decline was during a major period of water buybacks. If she wants more unequivocal evidence, it’s all in the MDBA’s Southern Basin community profiles, which can be found on its website.

Another independent report covering three local government areas in the NSW Murray along the Murray River and its tributaries estimated the first five years of Basin Plan implementation cost that region nearly $200 million and far more jobs than the plan’s modelling originally projected.

So forgive me, Ms Close, but like many of your SA counterparts you are not even ‘close’ to the mark when you state there is no evidence that voluntary buybacks hurt our communities.

Sure, we’re determined to overcome the damage they cause and we appreciate the support from water ministers in Victoria and NSW, who are desperately fighting to stop future buyback devastation.

It would be appreciated if, during debate on this important issue which has such a huge effect on the social and economic fabric of our communities, that within the SA bias there can remain at least a semblance of attention to the facts, as well as an appreciation for the potential ramifications of pedalling false information on our lives and futures. Believe it or not, we are real people too. Australians, even!

Shelley Scoullar,

Speak Up Campaign chair

My thoughts on sluggish Basin plan

Does the solution to the flooding problems lie in the choke section of the Murray River?

The 2022 flood was not in the top three regarding flood volumes.

The flow heights during that flood were the highest ever seen in the Picnic Point area. Why?

Many hundreds of trees have fallen into the river channel since the last small maintenance program was carried out some 40 years ago (1983), previous to that the late 1950s.

Barges loaded with mill logs floated through this same area until the 1950s.

Hundreds of more trees are poised to fall into the channel in the next decade, due to the undermining by European carp. They will then be classed as fish habitat.

The identified problem of silt slugs is adding to the problem.

The fallen trees have reduced the volume being passed downstream now by about 2500 megalitres a day.

These trees have reduced the velocity (current), which is causing slugs to increase at a far greater rate.

If these trees were realigned in the channel, velocity would be increased, and slugs could be washed downstream where they are not a problem.

The tourism created in the Picnic Point and surrounding area, which is the lifeblood of the once timber town of Mathoura, will be affected more by access being denied due to higher flows more frequently.

The problem is being recognised, but the cause is not.

These observations have been gained over 70 years of living, working and playing in this sensitive area.

Joe Murphy,

Echuca

Basin Plan needs to deliver real water to rivers, despite minister's misleading claims

Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing’s recent comment on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (The Riv, 24/2/23) wasn’t just disappointing, it was bordering on embarrassing.

The minister made the erroneous claim that setting water aside for rivers “doesn’t help to inundate low floodplains or connect them to the river system”.

This is misleading and ignores a simple principle at the heart of the Basin Plan: if we set water aside for rivers and let it flow, then it can restore the regular small and medium floods that have been missing for decades. These are the flows that sustain old red gums, connect to billabongs, trigger fish movement and waterbird breeding.

But we don’t just need to restore the rivers of the Basin. We need policy that ensures river communities are entitled to employment, income, education, health care, decent housing and a high standard of living. We need to make sure First Nations people have a say over how rivers and Country are managed.

If we want any of this, we need to speak honestly with each other, and acknowledge that the dubious ‘paper water’ offsets currently on the table are failing to deliver real water to the river. We need state governments to work constructively with the Federal Government, including allowing water purchases from willing sellers.

Tyler Rotche,

Environment Victoria Healthy Rivers Campaigner

On target

Quite a blast from Peter Walsh (The Riv, 26/2/23), a bloke with a personal history of duck shooting and a current membership of Field & Game Australia.

Mr Walsh confuses the economic contribution of duck hunting with that of all hunting (deer, quail, duck and pests). Duck shooting brings in less than a fifth of the total. The figures are from a 2019 hunting expenditure survey, which did not even check the shooters’ claims.

The real-world test is what counts: other states did not suffer when they banned bird hunting.

As for science, Mr Walsh is again wide of the mark. The Game Management Authority has a controversial new computer model to predict bag limits based on the past 30 years, half of which were short seasons!

Mr Walsh ignores the longest-running science, 40 years of Professor Richard Kingsford’s waterbird surveys across eastern Australia.

Shooters were happy with Prof Kingsford while duck numbers held up, but they dismiss his science now that long-term decline is clear.

If Mr Walsh is truly in touch with regional Victorians, he’d know most want an end to this bloody “sport”.

M Mack,

Bendigo

Baffling decision on duck season

Native ducks are struggling to survive, with climate change, catastrophic fires and drought causing long-term decline of the wetlands. So it’s baffling why the government would approve a duck shooting season this year, even with reduced days and killing limit, which the Game Management Authority has admitted is impossible for them to police.

The RSPCA has estimated that 87,000 birds will be killed and up to 35,000 wounded and left to die slowly in terror and agony. Ducklings are dependent on their mother for their first two months, and will die of cold, starve, or be eaten by predators if she is shot.

Let’s not pretend this is sport, which by definition involves both sides knowing they are playing. Using a high-powered rifle to blast a defenceless animal out of the sky doesn’t fit that definition in any way. Hunters kill for one reason — sheer sadistic amusement.

Several studies have shown that two thirds of Victorians oppose duck hunting, across both city and regional areas. Please call or message your MPs to reverse this outrageous decision. It’s time for duck shooting to be banned in Victoria outright.

Desmond Bellamy,

PETA Australia special projects co-ordinator

Bringing life to old building

Just an idea I have had running around in my head for several years regarding the historic ‘brothel’ in the port precinct.

Currently it is a decaying old building hardly worthy of a few minutes’ notice while reading the info plaque.

My suggestion would be to engage the abundance of artistic talent that we have in this town to produce portraits of their idea of how the ‘ladies of the night’ would look, one from each of the boarded up windows.

Done up in their finery, beckoning to the passing clients or perhaps lounging elegantly against the window frame.

The portraits would be done on wooden or canvas inserts to be placed inside the window frames so no actual harm would be done to this heritage-listed building, perhaps covered in Perspex and floodlit at night?

For very little expense we will have gained another unique tourist attraction.

Just out of left field (because this is how my dysfunctional brain works!) council might perhaps consider approaching well-known Australians and using their likenesses as “painted ladies”, permission required of course.

These portraits to be replaced every few years and maybe raffled off for charity?

Aussies are famous for our generosity and sense of humour, I can’t see you getting many knockbacks, Mick Molloy in drag would be hysterical … and great publicity for the town.

Lance Carrington,

Echuca

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