Big Basins, Little Cooperation

Denise Rosen: Sunset on Lake Shore ~Enlarge

In addition to water diversions, Australia and the Great Lakes region share another challenge: state disunity. In both the US and Australia, state disunity has prevented the appropriate and timely actions and policies required to protect our major freshwater sources. Recently, some of the most notable points of contention between the Great Lakes states are in regard to wind farms, the Asian carp, or water diversions.

In Australia, this problem is evident in the drought-plagued and over-allocated Murray-Darling Basin. One-third of Australia’s agricultural production is in this basin, which spans four of Australia’s six states (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia) and one of its territories (Australian Capital Territory). As seen in this video, to say this area is suffering from drought and over-allocation is an understatement. This problem is so big it will require state cooperation, but no matter how bad the problem gets, the states just refuse to play fair.

For this reason, people have called on the federal government to take action. There have been recent attempts by the federal government to give the Murray Darling Basin Authority more power, and a plan for the basin is currently underway. Of course, this plan has already been met with opposition and political posturing. Though the plan is yet to be released, farmers are already claiming that the federal government is rushing the plan, which is reported to be ‘a disaster’ in which “the environment is being favoured over social and environmental concerns”.  With the water drying up completely in some areas, these accusations seem out of step with the reality the region is facing. Without a healthy river, this area will suffer even further socially, economically and environmentally.

It is no different in the Great Lakes. Bickering over the economic cost of protecting the waters (e.g. to prevent Asian carp from entering), whilst sometimes valid and important, is too often used as a distraction from the real issues. And the real issues are how to cooperate and protect these basins from threats while there are still opportunities to do so.