waterways/wetlands – Page 28

Qld NRM Minister rules out more Channel Country irrigation

community, environment, government, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Jul 312013

Original story by Melinda Howells and Francene Norton, ABC News: Qld Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps rules out more Channel Country irrigation

The Queensland Government says it will not release more water for irrigation, as it winds back Wild Rivers declarations in the state's Channel Country.

A new management framework for the Georgina and Diamantina Rivers and Cooper Creek will replace the Wild Rivers declarations.

Some graziers had raised concerns that new irrigation projects would cause environmental damage.

However, Queensland Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps says no new licences will be issued.

"We'll be not allowing any further water to be released for irrigation purposes from the Georgina, Diamantina rivers or from Cooper Creek," he said.

Queensland's channel country rivers. Georgina River, Diamantina River, Thomson River, Cooper's Creek, Barcoo River and Warburton Creek feeding Lake Eyre North and Lake Eyre South. Longreach, Charleville and Mount Isa. Image at The Wilderness Society.

"The existing licences that are in place will be allowed to continue their operations and we'll not be buying or removing any of those existing licences."

The State Government has also approved oil and gas developments near protected rivers in the area, but says they will be subject to strict environmental conditions.

Mr Cripps says open-cut mining will not be allowed in the region but oil and gas developments will be, but under strict conditions.

He says mining developments will face a tougher approvals process than in other parts of the state.

"We recognise the unique environmental values of those western rivers means that we need to ensure that the conditions under which these petroleum and gas projects proceed are very high," he said.

"We will be making sure that they are assessed on a site-by-site and project-by-project basis."

White-necked Heron and Intermediate Egrets fishing on Coopers Creek. Photo by Glenn Walker at The Wilderness Society

But environmental groups have slammed the announcement.

Pew Charitable Trust spokesman Rupert Quinlan says Mr Cripps has gone against community advice.

"Advice from that panel said there should be no weakening of protections against mining in Channel Country - he's ignored that," Mr Quinlan said.

"He's also ignored calls from AgForce that there should be a moratorium on all oil and gas activities in Channel Country.

"He's ignored his local MP Vaughan Johnson and lastly he's ignored Aboriginal leaders."

However, Queensland Resources Council chief executive officer Michael Roche says the Government's decision is an important opportunity for jobs and investment.

"The news coming out of the companies that are exploring that part of the country, mostly as I say happening on the South Australian side of the border, talk about billions of dollars of potential production that can be generated in that part of Queensland," he said.

Oil spill at Port of Brisbane

government, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Jul 292013

Wildlife are affected by an oil spill in Brisbane Monday morning with up to 10 tonnes of oil leaking into the Port of Brisbane, as the culprits face fines of up to $11 million. Oil on the surface of the water at Port of Brisbane. Photo: Seven News

Original story by Kim Stephens at the Brisbane Times

It could take up to a week to clean up a five to 10 tonne oils spill at the Port of Brisbane, Queensland transport minister Scott Emerson said on Monday morning.

Some bird life, including pelicans, have been spotted coated in oil and Department of Environment officers were working to treat the animals, Mr Emerson said.

The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection has since confirmed that four pelicans and one cormorant have come into contact with oil at the site of the spill.

‘‘Plans are being made to attempt to capture the birds,’’ a spokeswoman said in a statement.

"Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service is assisting with marine parks vessels and officers experienced in oiled wildlife recovery.''

Mr Emerson said port authorities believed they had identified the vessel that leaked the oil into the port around midnight on Sunday and hefty fines could apply.

"In terms of the vessel that may be the culprit, they are facing, for individuals, fines of up to $550,000 and if a company, $11 million, as well as the cost cleaning it up," he said.

One the pelicans that came into contact with the oil spill at Brisbane's port. Photo: Steve Hoseck NPRSR

The slick is confined to a 1400 metre stretch along the wharf and marine and port authorities have put booms in place to contain it.

"It is heavy oil, we will see some evaporation as the sun comes out but because it is heavy oil, booms are containing the spill and skimmers will try to lift it up," he said.

Mr Emerson said the scheduled arrival of the USS George Washington at the port today - visiting Brisbane as part of the joint Australian and US training Operation Talisman-Sabre - would not be interrupted.

"Given the oil is contained to the wharf, not the channel, that won't be impacted," he said.

However, there could be some minor delays to commercial wharf ships, a Maritime Safety Queensland spokesman said earlier.

Staff at the Port of Brisbane noticed the slick just after midnight, but were unable to determine the extent of its spread in the dark.

A photo of a pelican covered in oil that was tweeted by Transport Minister Scott Emerson.

Investigations by maritime authorities after sunrise determined the oil spill was relatively small.

"We are still assessing the extent of it but no-one is talking large quantities," the Maritime Safety spokesman said.

"Obviously no-one is happy that any oil is in the water so Maritime Safety will investigate to find the source."

He said both Port of Brisbane and Maritime Safety Queensland workers would work throughout the morning to contain and clean-up the spill.

He said the impact on port traffic was expected to be minimal.

"Obviously we wouldn't want to put a vessel out there, so maybe we are looking at some of the shipping movements," he said.

Water police are assisting with the investigation and clean-up.

There has been an oil spill at the Port of Brisbane. Photo: Michelle Smith

Pipeline plan puts protected wetlands in peril, say researchers

government, waterways/wetlands

Jul 292013

Original story by Ben Cubby, Sydney Morning Herald

At risk: Protected wetlands from the Macquarie River to Orange lie in the way of a proposed pipeline. Photo: Andrew Taylor

A pipeline that would pump more than 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools of drinking water a year to Orange, in the state's central west, will rely on water that is essential to sustain an internationally protected wetland, new research says.

The federal and state governments have already committed $38 million to fund the project, which requires digging a 39-kilometre pipeline from the Macquarie River to Orange. The plans have been approved at state level, and a final federal decision on whether to build the pipe is expected within weeks.

But University of NSW researchers say modelling for the plan is wrong and underestimates the impact on the Macquarie Marshes, a waterbird refuge that is listed under the international Ramsar convention.

''The modelling they used assumes there is spare water in the system, when in fact there is none,'' said Professor Richard Kingsford, director of the Australian Wetlands, Rivers and Landscapes Centre. ''It would add greatly to the pressure on environmental flows … which are being paid for by the public, which has invested through buyback of allocations.''

Map showing the proposed 39 km pipeline and the Macquarie Marshes Floodplain.

The dispute centres on tensions between human and environmental use of water, in a region where populations are expected to keep growing even as the climate grows hotter and drier.

The plan says the Macquarie River should be flowing at 108 million litres a day before pumping can start, but the University of NSW research found that the minimum threshold should be 118 million litres.

''We stand by the modelling we have, and it has been peer-reviewed by experts,'' said an Orange council spokesman, Nick Redmond. ''Through the last drought, we were close to a critical level. We were at the point of getting very close to informing some businesses that they could no longer operate because we could no longer supply water.''

The pipeline has passed a review by the NSW Planning Assessment Commission, after some modifications, and the federal assessment is due by August 8.

''Even at the uptake point, we are talking about using 0.28 per cent of the flow of the river,'' Mr Redmond said.

''The fact is we have listened to people who have had concerns about this project.''

The plan has been modified somewhat after the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage said in a submission that ''the sustainability and efficiency of the project is of serious concern''. Up to 70 per cent of the water extracted from the river could be lost to spills and evaporation before it passed through the taps of the people of Orange, it said.

Professor Kingsford's co-author, Justin McCann, said the amendments meant the modified project had to be reviewed again.

"Our modelling identified the pumping thresholds were wrong, which was further supported by a government-commissioned assessment,'' he said.

''What this means is that the approval is based on new thresholds, which have never been properly assessed. The original environmental assessment has underestimated the ecological impact of this development."

Study explains Pacific equatorial cold water region

environment, waterways/wetlands

Jul 272013

Original press release from Oregon State University

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study published this week in the journal Nature reveals for the first time how the mixing of cold, deep waters from below can change sea surface temperatures on seasonal and longer timescales.

Because this occurs in a huge region of the ocean that takes up heat from the atmosphere, these changes can influence global climate patterns, particularly global warming.

Using a new measurement of mixing, Jim Moum and Jonathan Nash of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University have obtained the first multi-year records of mixing that permit assessment of seasonal changes. This is a significant advance beyond traditional shipboard measurements that are limited to the time that a ship can be away from port. Small instruments fueled by lithium batteries were built to be easily deployed on deep-sea equatorial moorings.

Ocean buoy at sea. Photo: OSU

Moum employs a simple demonstration to show how mixing works.

He pours cold, white cream into a clear glass mug full of hot, black coffee, very carefully, using a straw to inject the heavier cream at the bottom of the mug, where it remains.

“Now we can wait until the cream diffuses into the coffee, and we’ll have a nice cuppa joe,” Moum says. “Unfortunately, the coffee will be cold by then. Or, we can introduce some external energy into the system, and mix it.”

A stirring spoon reveals motions in the mug outlined by the black/white contrasts of cream in coffee until the contrast completely disappears, and the color achieves that of café au lait.

“Mixing is obviously important in our normal lives, from the kitchen to the dispersal of pollutants in the atmosphere, reducing them to levels that are barely tolerable,” he said.

The new study shows how mixing, at the same small scales that appear in your morning coffee, is critical to the ocean. It outlines the processes that create the equatorial Pacific cold tongue, a broad expanse of ocean near the equator that is roughly the size of the continental United States, with sea surface temperatures substantially cooler than surrounding areas.

Because this is a huge expanse that takes up heat from the atmosphere, understanding how it does so is critical to seasonal weather patterns, El Nino, and to global climate change.

In temperate latitudes, the atmosphere heats the ocean in summer and cools it in winter. This causes a clear seasonal cycle in sea surface temperature, at least in the middle of the ocean. At low latitudes near the equator, the atmosphere heats the sea surface throughout the year. Yet a strong seasonal cycle in sea surface temperature is present here, as well. This has puzzled oceanographers for decades who have suspected mixing may be the cause but have not been able to prove this.

Moum, Nash and their colleagues began their effort in 2005 to document mixing at various depths on an annual basis, which previously had been a near-impossible task.

“This is a very important area scientifically, but it’s also quite remote,” Moum said. “From a ship it’s impossible to get the kinds of record lengths needed to resolve seasonal cycles, let alone processes with longer-term cycles like El Nino and La Nina. But for the first time in 2005, we were able to deploy instrumentation to measure mixing on a NOAA mooring and monitor the processes on a year-round basis.”

The researchers found clear evidence that mixing alone cools the sea surface in the cold tongue, and that the magnitude of mixing is influenced by equatorial currents that flow from east to west at the surface, and from west to east in deeper waters 100 meters beneath the surface.

“There is a hint – although it is too early to tell – that increased mixing may lead, or have a correlation to the development of La Niña,” Moum said. “Conversely, less mixing may be associated with El Niño. But we only have a six-year record – we’ll need 25 years or more to reach any conclusions on this question.”

Nash said the biggest uncertainty in climate change models is understanding some of the basic processes for the mixing of deep-ocean and surface waters and the impacts on sea surface temperatures. This work should make climate models more accurate in the future.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, and deployments have been supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Continued research will add instruments at the same equatorial mooring and an additional three locations in the equatorial Pacific cold tongue to gather further data.

Reference: James N. Moum, Alexander Perlin, Jonathan D. Nash, Michael J. McPhaden. Seasonal sea surface cooling in the equatorial Pacific cold tongue controlled by ocean mixing. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12363

Rapid upper ocean warming linked to declining aerosols

environment, waterways/wetlands

Jul 262013

Media release from CSIRO

Australian scientists have identified causes of a rapid warming in the upper subtropical oceans of the Southern Hemisphere.

They partly attribute the observed warming, and preceding cooling trends to ocean circulation changes induced by global greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols predominantly generated in the Northern Hemisphere from human activity.

The research, by scientists from CSIRO and the University of NSW, was published today in Scientific Reports.

Mr Tim Cowan, lead author of the study, says his group was initially interested in the three decade long cooling below the surface of the Southern Hemisphere subtropical oceans from the 1960s and 1990s. "But what really caught our eye was a rapid warming of these subtropical oceans from the mid-1990s, most noticeably in the Indian Ocean between 300 m to 1000 m depth," said Mr Cowan.

This had the research team asking whether this rapid warming was partly a response to greenhouse gases overcoming the cooling effect of aerosols that peaked globally in the 1980s due to the introduction of clean air legislation across United States and Europe.

To test this, the researchers examined more than 40 state-of-the-art climate simulations that included historical changes to greenhouse gases and aerosols over the twentieth century. "What we found was that the models do a good job at simulating the late twentieth century cooling and rapid warming in the subtropical southern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, however they show an around 30-year delay in the warming in the Indian Ocean" said Mr Cowan.

"This delay in the modelled Indian Ocean warming is likely due to the presence of atmospheric aerosols, generated through transport emissions, biomass burning, and industrial smog, together with natural emissions of sea salt and dust - these were also the main cause of the late twentieth century subtropical Indian Ocean below-surface cooling" said Mr Cowan.

The researchers found that models with a delayed peak in Northern Hemisphere aerosol levels after the 1980s had a tendency to simulate a delayed rapid Indian Ocean warming until well after 2020, and that the rate of warming related to how quickly the aerosol levels declined after their peak.

"We know that aerosols in the atmosphere generally cool the Northern Hemisphere by scattering incoming sunlight. This, in turn, increases the movement of heat from the Southern Hemisphere oceans to the Northern Hemisphere oceans via a global oceanic conveyor belt, travelling south from the subtropical Indian Ocean, passing the southern tip of Africa into the south Atlantic and then north along the Gulf Stream" said co-author Dr Wenju Cai.

"Together with a greenhouse gas-induced southward shift the Indian subtropical ocean gyres towards the Antarctic, these processes delay the Indian Ocean warming in the models," Dr Cai said.

"What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures" says Mr Cowan. "For many years aerosols have masked the direct surface warming induced by greenhouse gases in many Northern Hemisphere regions, however in the Southern subtropical Indian Ocean both aerosols and greenhouse gases have historically conspired to produce a net oceanic cooling, and now the reverse of some of these processes is occurring."

Mr Cowan said that despite the observed rapid ocean warming, quantifying exactly how much is due to declining aerosols or increasing greenhouse gases remains difficult, but as human-generated air pollution is all-together phased out, this will undoubtedly reveal the full impact of greenhouse gases.

The research has been supported by the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship, The Australian Climate Change Science Program and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science.

Read more media releases in our Media section.

Chemicals That Break Down Water Contaminants Pass Safety Test

environment, waterways/wetlands

Jul 252013

Press release from Mellon College of Science:
Carnegie Mellon-Developed Chemicals That Break Down Water Contaminants Pass Safety Test

Study Finds That TAML® Activators Don't Interfere With Development of Zebrafish Embryos

PITTSBURGH—A family of molecules developed at Carnegie Mellon University to break down pollutants in water is one step closer to commercial use. Study results published online in the journal Green Chemistry show that the molecules, which are aimed at removing hazardous endocrine disruptors from water sources, aren't endocrine disruptors themselves as they proved to be non-toxic to developing zebrafish embryos.

Zebrafish (Zebra Danio, Danio rerio)

Created by Carnegie Mellon green chemist Terry Collins, the molecules, called TAML® activators, provide an environmentally friendly method for breaking down toxic compounds that contaminate water, including endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disrupters, which are found in almost 25 percent of our streams, rivers and lakes, can disrupt the normal functions of the endocrine system by mimicking or blocking the activities of hormones in wildlife leading to impaired development. While the connections between the adverse effects of endocrine disrupting water contaminants on aquatic organisms and human health have yet to be established, animal studies suggest that endocrine disruptors may be involved in a host of modern-day health epidemics including cancers, learning disabilities, obesity, and immune and reproductive system disorders.

Certain medications are designed to disrupt the endocrine system, such as birth control pills and breast and prostate cancer drugs. In some cases, people taking these drugs excrete a significant amount of the active ingredients into wastewater. Concentrated animal feeding operations also release a multitude of veterinary drugs and artificial and natural hormones into bodies of water. The toxic molecules then contaminate our waterways in part because they are not cleared by conventional wastewater treatment approaches.

"Fish in rivers and lakes can be adversely affected by even minute traces of ethinylestradiol, an artificial estrogen found in birth control pills. In what is a worldwide problem, male fish become more feminine, which impairs their ability to reproduce and contributes to declining fish populations," Collins said.

In previous work, Collins and his collaborators showed that TAMLs used with hydrogen peroxide can easily and efficiently remove steroid hormones, including ethinylestradiol, from water after one treatment.

"Quite a few common commercial chemicals cause endocrine disruption," said Collins, the Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry. "Before TAML activators are commercialized for treating municipal water, it is important to be sure that they aren't introducing into the water the very problem they were designed to reduce or eliminate."

In the current study, the research groups of Carnegie Mellon's Collins and Oregon State University's Robert L. Tanguay tested several TAML activators to determine whether they exhibit any endocrine disrupting ability. Using zebrafish as a model system, the researchers exposed the fish embryos to seven different types of TAML activators. The embryos used in the study had had their outer membrane, called the chorion, removed to heighten their sensitivity to chemicals. At the concentrations typically used for decontaminating water, none of the TAMLs impaired embryo development. Collins said at higher concentrations three of the TAMLs impaired development, indicating that they should be avoided for use in water treatment.

The researchers also looked at the relationship between the chemical structure of the TAML activators and the level of toxicity.

"We found that certain structural features of the TAML activators led to a higher degree of toxicity. This knowledge can guide the redesign or design of new TAML molecules that are not toxic to fish or other wildlife," Collins said. "Fortunately, the most useful catalysts for treating water exhibited the lowest toxicity."

The zebrafish tests represent just one step in a series of tests that can be used to confirm that a TAML activator, or any chemical, is free of endocrine disrupting activity. The test is part of a five-tiered testing system called the Tiered Protocol for Endocrine Disruption (TiPED) that was developed by 24 chemists, biologists and environmental health scientists, including Collins, for chemists and manufacturers to use to determine whether their chemical has endocrine disrupting activity. The tiers range from computer-based approaches and cell assays to tests in fish and mammals. The zebrafish tests constitute tier four of the system.

Collins and collaborators in the United States and England have already conducted or are conducting tests on TAMLs using the other assays in TiPED tiers. In all cases thus far, the tests reveal that TAML activators can be designed to not cause developmental disruption in aquatic organisms when used in water treatment.

"These collaborative studies collectively provide a model that can be copied time and time again by chemists interested in producing chemicals known to be free of developmental disruption by the highest standards of contemporary science as a way to advance the sustainability of our global civilization," Collins said.

Co-authors on the paper include Lisa Truong and Tanguay at Oregon State University and CMU Department of Chemistry graduate students Matthew A. DeNardo and Soumen Kundu.

The study was funded with support from the Heinz Endowments, the R.K. Mellon Foundation, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), R01 ES016896, P30 ES000210, P42 ES016465, and F31 ES019445 (based at Oregon State University).

Redmap Queensland

community, fisheries, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Jul 252013

Octopus tetricus - Gloomy Octopus or Common Sydney Octopus. © Kevin Deacon, Australian Museum

It looks like the gloomy octopus may be moving its home further south; followed by crimson banded wrasse and rock cale. Redmap has developed a ‘report card’ to assess and report potential shifts in the ranges of fish and marine species along the Tasmanian coast. And all using the observations collected by divers and fishers in Tasmania (where Redmap started 3 years ago before it launched nationally). Check out which fish may be on the move in the Report Card.

The Redmap website invites you to share sightings of fish and marine critters that you think are ‘uncommon’ and do not usually live along your coastline. Over time, Redmap will use your ‘citizen science’ data and photos to sketch a picture of Australian fish and marine species that may be extending their distribution range – a.k.a shifting house - in response to changes in the marine environment, such as warming seas.

Redmap allows Australians to collect their own marine data, share stories and upload photos of ‘unusual’ sightings. Redmap is science created by the people for the people.

Temperature of rivers checked

waterways/wetlands

Jul 242013

NATIONAL CENTRE FOR GROUNDWATER RESEARCH & TRAINING at Science Alert Australia and New Zealand

Water scientists are using heat to measure the extent to which some of Australia’s inland rivers and streams could dry up due to over-extraction of groundwater.

Draining a water system's aquifer can have serious affects on river health. Photo: Microstock Man, Shutterstock

During the Millennium Drought a number of rivers and streams in the Murray-Darling Basin dried up partly as a result of over-extraction from the aquifers that normally keep them flowing.

In a bid to understand the problem better and to help federal and state water managers secure our water supplies, researchers at the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) are measuring water temperature both above and below the surface.

“By measuring the rate at which warmer water from the surface trickles into the cooler water below ground we can gain an idea of how quickly or slowly an aquifer is being recharged,” says Dr Martin Andersen of NCGRT and the University of NSW.

“We’ve installed data loggers at various points in the Murray-Darling Basin both above and below ground, which are recording temperature changes throughout the day, allowing us much greater insight into the movement of water between streams and underground aquifers.”

Although other methods, such as natural radioactive tracers are more appropriate when looking at deeper groundwater systems, where temperature changes are undetectable, in these shallow systems natural changes in heat make an excellent tracer for water movement as it is freely available and easy to measure.

“By leaving these loggers in place for long periods of time, we can collect data over many years. This not only helps us build up a consistent picture of water flow in a given area but also means that we can monitor how groundwater levels recharge during floods,” says Dr Andersen.

“All this data provides us with much needed information about the connection and flow between different water sources. We can then use it to test, and improve, our models which show how one water source is linked to another and predict whether they will increase or decline.”

By taking advantage of these naturally occurring temperature changes to trace the flow of water, Dr Andersen and his team are providing a much clearer picture of underground water systems that are often impossible to observe first-hand.

“It is estimated that around 95 per cent of Australia’s total freshwater supplies are underground. Unlike a surface dam, there are no easy ways to observe the movement and renewability of this water.”

In the laboratory, the researchers are using ‘sand tanks’ to test the rate at which water can move between an aquifer and a surface water body. As part of this work they are also using emerging technologies such as fiber optic lasers to measure the temperature both above and below ground with much greater clarity.

“The relationship between groundwater and surface-water is often complex and may vary between different sections of the same river,” says Dr Andersen. “For example, water typically penetrates gravels and sands much more readily than it does finer silts and clays.

“Our ‘sand tank’ allows us to examine the movement of water through different materials. For example, we can simulate day and night changes in water temperature and observe how long it takes the heated water to penetrate these different materials, such as fine versus coarse sand grains.

“The results increase our confidence in the use of temperature measurements for tracing how groundwater and surface-water are connected at a particular location, and tell us how fast this water is flowing,” he says.

NCGRT managing director, Prof. Craig Simmons says that the overall picture of groundwater usage in Australia has only become clear in recent years since the introduction of the National Water Initiative.

“If not properly managed, increasing groundwater extraction poses a long-term risk as we generally do not know what effect its removal will have on watercourses at the surface, such as streams and rivers.

“In order to manage this risk we need to understand how withdrawing water from one area, will affect a water source in another. Using heat to trace water movement is one important method that we have at our disposal to better understand and manage catchment areas such as the Murray-Darling Basin that provide critical sources of water to communities, businesses and ecosystems throughout Australia.”

Governments are not protecting the Great Barrier Reef

government, waterways/wetlands

Jul 222013

By Bob Kearney, University of Canberra at The Conversation

Announcements last week of the escalating damage to the Great Barrier Reef confirm Australia’s most famous and intensely managed Marine Protected Area has not been properly protected. UNESCO’s recent review shows Australia is in danger of becoming the first developed country to have World Heritage Status of an area revoked.

Calling something protected isn’t enough to protect it. AAP Image/Australian Institute for Marine Science

The Government has repeatedly claimed that because Australia has a disproportionate share of the world’s marine parks it leads the world in marine conservation. But does simply having a lot of marine parks mean Australia is doing a good job?

It is increasingly obvious that management within the whole of the protected areas network has been, and remains, inadequate.

This management failure has been made possible by distortion of the principles of both investigative science and evidence-based policy and management. The basic tenets of science, in particular accuracy and precision, and the principles of evidence-based adaptive management, have been subverted by a culture of uncritical promotion of marine parks.

The Australian Government has known for many years that the major man-made causes of damage to the Reef come from land-based activities, predominantly agriculture, mining, inappropriate coastal development and the insidious effects of climate change. But the recent review confirms that even with this knowledge, the Government has failed to manage them.

In reality Australia’s approach to the whole marine parks process – an approach of claiming protection without addressing carefully identified threats – has been inappropriate. It distracts from addressing real problems.

Failures in the interaction between science and management are not entirely by accident or oversight. They have been underpinned by delusion about the level of protection that is actually provided by Australian marine parks.

Internationally, there is a commitment for marine parks to be “Comprehensive, Effectively Managed and Representative”. But the commitment to effectiveness was removed early on in the Australia-specific principle, which calls for a “Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative” system of parks. The difference is telling. “Adequacy” refers to the number and size of parks, not what protection they provide and how effectively they do so.

The internationally accepted definition of the Precautionary Principle has been redefined by Australia specifically for marine parks to mandate that declaration of parks must not be constrained by scientific uncertainty, even if this uncertainty applies to the effectiveness of the parks themselves.

Threats to marine systems have not been properly identified. In fact, marine parks have deliberately not been established to address threats. All four of the goals and thirteen of the fourteen “selection principles” for the national system of marine reserves relate to what is in reserves, not biodiversity conservation, which is primary objective of the system.

Commonwealth marine park performance indicators do not assess whether the park provides biodiversity conservation against all threats, or even any single threat. There is no requirement to evaluate whether the park is providing effective protection. There is therefore no need to commit to appropriate adaptive management. This means governments do not have to provide the resources necessary to adequately manage the most significant threats – in particular those from agriculture and mining – even in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The Federal Government has systematically exaggerated claims of parks' conservation benefits. Former environment minister Tony Burke made numerous unjustified and misleading assertions that closing areas to extraction represents permanent and even total protection. He avoided acknowledging that most of the major threats, including pollution, are in the form of injection, not extraction.

Exaggerated predictions of fisheries benefits have been based on underestimating decreases in catches due to area closures and unrealistic assumptions of net benefit from the export of fish from closed areas.

By not basing its management of marine environments on identified threats and by not efficiently addressing these threats, Australia has not only avoided the logical approach to the problem but it has actually ignored its own commitments. The InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment requires, “ensuring that measures adopted should be cost-effective and not be disproportionate to the significance of the environmental problems being addressed”.

Unless Australia changes its approach to marine conservation and bases management on addressing the properly identified threats in proportion to their severity, our marine “protected” areas will continue to fail to provide effective protection.

Bob Kearney has received funding over the last three years from the Commonwealth Government Fisheries Research and Development Corporation for work on threats to Australia’s biodiversity and how they are managed. He has received more than $10 million in research grants over the last 40 years, almost all of it from governments or government agencies. He also does two days work each month for the Sydney Fish Market on the sustainability of Australian fisheries.

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Swan River ‘worse than it looks’

fisheries, waterways/wetlands, wildlife

Jul 192013

Original story by Daniel Mercer, The West Australian

The Swan River is like a cemetery, according to world-renowned WA water expert Jorg Imberger.

The University of WA professor makes the comparison to illustrate that not everything is as it seems.

At face value it appears peaceful, picturesque even, but look below the surface and there is death and decay.

Dying trees on the Swan River near Garratt Road Bridge. Picture: Mogens Johansen, The West Australian

"If you look at the surface, the river still looks quite good," Professor Imberger said. "It's unfortunate because it's a veneer."

For more than 25 years, Professor Imberger and his team of scientists at UWA's Centre for Water Research have been checking the pulse of the river with increasing concern.

Last week, they gave The West Australian an insight into their work as they tested the water quality from Fremantle, just before it meets the Indian Ocean, to Guildford, almost 50km upstream.

Although the results were markedly better than those taken as recently as June, they paint a picture of a river system battling for the vital signs that indicate life, let alone healthiness.

Oxygen levels, apart from the ocean-like environment at the river mouth in Fremantle, were modest or low, and salinity and chlorophyll concentrations - a key precursor to algal blooms - were elevated.

Crucially, the results also underlined an entrenched and damaging phenomenon winding an increasingly tight grip around the Swan - a process known as stratification.

Heavy seawater moves upstream, forcing fresher water flowing downstream over the top.

The heavier water, which used to be washed out to sea every year before the big decline in Perth's winter rainfall, now effectively sits at the bottom and stagnates, allowing organic material in it to break down and consume oxygen.

The upshot, Professor Imberger said, was that the lower depths of the Swan River could become deaths zones in which no life could survive.

"In any other place in the world … it would be classified as a disaster," Professor Imberger said. "The problem is it's hidden here. A few dolphins come in at the surface and people think, 'Oh, it looks great, what are you talking about?' "

The Swan River Trust concedes the river is struggling with the effects of a drying climate and urban encroachment but disputes it is dead in parts or even dying.

River systems manager Mark Cugley points to anecdotal evidence that numbers of fish, including black bream, are abundant and populations of blue manna crabs, prawns and cobblers might be recovering.

Mr Cugley said low oxygen levels of the kind recorded last week were "not ideal" but were not an immediate danger.

He touches on the trust's $40 million healthy rivers action plan to describe how the agency was focused on reducing nutrients entering the river to improve its health.

Dismissing claims of abundant fish life as "nonsense", Professor Imberger says the Swan's plight is serious and in the short term consideration should be given to a barrage under Stirling Bridge to stop intrusion of saltwater upstream.

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Original story by Melinda Howells and Francene Norton, ABC News: Qld Natural Resources Minister Andrew Cripps rules out more Channel Country irrigation

Press release from Mellon College of Science: Carnegie Mellon-Developed Chemicals That Break Down Water Contaminants Pass Safety Test

Study Finds That TAML® Activators Don't Interfere With Development of Zebrafish Embryos

Press release from Mellon College of Science:
Carnegie Mellon-Developed Chemicals That Break Down Water Contaminants Pass Safety Test