By Peter Hannam
An unsolicited modification of licences for irrigators on the Macquarie River has allowed water earmarked for protecting one of the most important wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin to be diverted for a cotton crop.
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Restoring Rigour to the Basin Plan
Pull The Other One, Murray Darling is not in Safe Hands
SMH
By Richard Beasley
When a lawyer of the standing of Bret Walker SC uses language such as “maladministration”, “unlawful”, “gross negligence” and “indefensible” to describe the conduct of a statutory authority, it’s understandable that it attracts attention.
Fished killed by poor river management
The NSW and Federal governments must accept responsibility for their role in the catastrophic fish kills on the Darling River in western NSW this month.
Commission of inquiry into Darling is welcome but we simply need more H2O for nature to work
NSW Nature Conservation Council and the Inland Rivers Network welcome NSW Labor’s plan for a special commission of inquiry into management of the Darling River system, especially if it results in new measures to ensure environmental water flows are protected.
190121-mr – inquiry welcome but we simply need more h2o for nature to work
Murray-Darling Basin Authority: a royal, commissioned farce
Dec 25, 2018
“A fraud on the environment” is how lawyers for the Royal Commission framed it. Cronyism, cover-ups, deception, secrecy, scientists “leaned on”. The Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission report is to be handed down in little over a month and the outcome, for Australia’s water authorities, will not be pretty. Triskele reports – in a tragi-comedy in three acts – on the extraordinary events surrounding Australia’s most critical inland water system.
‘Drought, climate change and mismanagement’: What experts think caused the death of a million Menindee fish
ABC Science
By environment reporter Nick Kilvert
The sight of more than a million fish floating belly up on the Darling River at Menindee has thrown doubt over the management of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Experts say irrigators are taking too much water from the system, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has mismanaged water flows.
But New South Wales Water Minister Niall Blair says drought is to blame.
So long, fish, and thanks for nothing, Murray Darling planners
By Rod Campbell
“A million native fish have been killed in the Murray Darling Basin. Drought is the catalyst, but the mismanagement of the Murray Darling Basin Plan is the cause.”
Inland Rivers Network v Harris & Another
EDO NSW, on behalf of its client the Inland Rivers Network, has commenced civil enforcement proceedings in the NSW Land and Environment Court in relation to allegations of unlawful water pumping by a large-scale irrigator on the Barwon-Darling River.
This case is listed for hearing on 30 November 2018.
Murray-Darling Basin Plan ‘maladministered’, South Australia will suffer the most
Critics of the handling of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan say the final submission to the South Australian Royal Commission vindicates their concerns of corrupted implementation.
A significant element of the evidence before the royal commission has been the lack of scientific backing for the MDBA’s modelling that showed 2,750 gigalitres of water could be recovered for the environment under the plan. All the scientific evidence presented to the royal commission said the modelling was ‘not science’, Beasley said.
Inland Rivers Network 