Water such a controversal issue

Julie:

If you live in the Eastern part of Australia you will no doubt have heard that the Murray Darling Basin Commission has released their draft report on water sharing in the Murray Darling Basin - and that it's very controversial.

Here in the bush the anger/frustration/apprehension is enormous. With predicted cuts of nearly 50% in some of the catchment areas the impact is likely to be huge. As one speaker said "its like give water to the environment and count the bodies later". I believe that some of the concerns in the bush are around the strong impression that instead of the "triple bottom line" approach (economic, social and environmental) only the environment has been taken into account.

To give you some idea of the impact, the Cotton Industry commissioned a report to look into the social and economic impacts of water cuts. In Griffith (a city of 27,000) a water cut of 50% will reduce employment by 19% and population by over 25%. If this is the impact on a major city then imagine what will happen in smaller places. I was incredibly disappointed to hear one of the Wentworth Group casually mention that small towns "will just have to close".

If you would like to read the report done by Dr Judith Stubbs you can find it a here. It's in a number of parts and looks at a range of communities and areas.