birding-aus

Land clearing and solving salt problems

To: "Michael J Hunter" <>, "Birding Aus" <>
Subject: Land clearing and solving salt problems
From: "Peter Waanders" <>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 10:30:29 +0930
Hi Michael and others,

Here in SA there are currently 3 Salt Interception Schemes operational
consisting of around 80 bores in total that pump saline ground water away
from the river Murray at a rate of between 140 litres/second - 250 l/s. The
average salinity of this water is roughly half that of seawater. There are
two so-called Disposal Basins where the stuff we need, water, is being
evaporated into the air, and the stuff we don't need, salt, is being
accumulated.
These disposal basins are nothing but large (500 ha +) man-made wetlands
stuck in the middle of nowhere, and while they now (10 years after
establishment) provide excellent breeding habitat for waterfowl etc, they
are fairly void of vegetation because of their location in <220mm/yr
rainfall areas and of course the salinity which has destroyed any previously
occurring vegetation.
The land purchased to put these basins was marginal grazing country partly
covered in natural mallee vegetation, which has since been killed by the
salt. To give SA Water credit, they have done extensive revegetation
programs around the edges adding up to over half of the vegetation that was
lost.
Hydrogeological modelling has predicted the salt, which is slowly moving
down into the groundwater, to reach the river Murray again within 100 years.
But it is hoped by then a technique will have been developed to mine the
salt on a profitable basis.
I hope this sheds some light on the issue.

Cheers

Peter Waanders

website: www.riverland.net.au/~peterw
gluepot: www.riverland.net.au/gluepot

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