Murray-Darling Inflows 40% Below Record Lows; Howard Pledges $10 Billion To Keep Irrigating

[hatrack]

CANBERRA -- Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced plans on Thursday to spend more than A$10 billion ($7 billion) to restore the nation's ailing rivers, making dwindling water supplies his priority in an election year. The 10-year plan includes A$6 billion to repair and cover irrigation channels along Australia's Murray-Darling river basin, an area the size of France and Spain that accounts for 41 percent of the nation's agriculture.

With much of eastern Australia in its sixth year of drought, inflows into the Murray River in 2006 were at 40 percent of the previous record low, prompting authorities to cut water allocations to farmers along the 2,500 km (1,550 mile) river. "The current trajectory of water use and management in Australia is not sustainable. In a protracted drought, and with the prospect of long-term climate change, we need radical and permanent change," Howard told the National Press Club in Canberra.

Howard, who has served almost 11 years in power and who faces a tough election in the second half of 2007, said water security was Australia's biggest environmental challenge.

The environment is shaping up as a major election issue, with the Labor opposition 10 percentage points ahead of Howard. Popular new Labor leader Kevin Rudd promises to sign the Kyoto Protocol and combat climate change.

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=12094

[aquart]

1. And how many of us knew that was Australia?

[bahrbearian]

2. You don't think" Howard Pledges $10 Billion To Keep Irrigating"

wasn't a give away?

[phantom power]

3. Well, that should definitely slow the bleeding.

I can only wonder, "what then?" How many Australian dollars does it take to give us our old biosphere back and make it rain?

[hatrack]

4. But it's OK - John Howard's a "climate-change realist" now!

:eyes:

[phantom power]

5. Heh. Compared to his buddy Bush, I suppose he is.

I'm pretty sure it will be a cold day in hell before Bush ever makes a 30% impact on anything having to do with climate change. Unless you count ways of making it 30% worse.