The State Government’s Sydney Metropolitan Plan is very big on short-term strategies. Placing a heavy reliance during the current drought on transferring water from the Shoalhaven River is just one of them!

During 2006, in the face of falling dam levels around Sydney, the Sydney Catchment Authority progressively increased its extractions from the Shoalhaven until, by the end of August, the river was contributing 81.3% to Sydney’s water consumption.

However, by the end of November, the river was contributing nothing – principally due to lack of rainfall in the Shoalhaven catchment. This highlights the short-term nature of relying on limited surface and groundwater sources beyond Sydney to maintain a wasteful use of water within the metropolitan area.

While failing to meet Sydney’s excessive water demand, extractions from the Shoalhaven River are having serious impacts on the health of the river.

These extractions are effectively exacerbating the impact of the drought seriously threatening the economics of the river’s oyster farmers and professional fishers. Australian Bass fishers are also observing significant reductions in size and numbers of catch. Because jellyfish are occurring in plague proportions due to the high salinity in the river’s estuarine reaches, the impact on swimming and other body-contact recreational activities is causing concerns for the tourism industry.

Charlie Weir has been a professional fisher on the Shoalhaven for much of his life and has more recently become known as the Mangrove Man due to his work in replanting and restoring mangrove communities on the margins of the river. He has long lamented the serious impacts of impounding the river at Tallowa Dam and diverting river flows to Sydney.

In addition to his concern at the decline of the prawn, oyster and fishing industries, Charlie has presented evidence to governments of long-term decline of estuarine aquatic plants which provide important fish habitat. There is evidence that this decline is related to persistently high salinity levels. One species, Phragmites communis, is an important stabiliser of sandy sediments on the river’s margins and its progressive disappearance may have serious implications for bank erosion.

Environmental Scientist Terry Barratt, Chair of the Shoalhaven River Alliance, has drawn attention to the need for regular freshwater flushes to maintain the river’s biological health, so necessary for the commercial and recreational opportunities it has always offered in the past.

He points out that the Sydney extractions are robbing the river of many of the low-level flushing so critical during times of drought.