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Our Guest Speaker today was Bill Booth who was introduced by Peter Crozier who said: It is my privilege to introduce Bill Booth, a neighbour of mine. - Bill was born and raised in Wagga Wagga
- His interest has always been in the rural scene
- He spent many years both overseas and in the western Riverina
- His main interest has been in intensive and large scale irrigation particularly involving environmental aspects
- He was awarded a Rotary foundation scholarship in 1972 in the days of PDG Eric Kronborg and Leigh Marshall
- He has been a full time private consultant since 1988
- He is well renowned on his topic in evidence of bringing along his own rent a crowd in Max Mclaughlin, Gerald Menagazzo who had a property in Narrandera area .
- His topic today is Water Policy, bureaucracy and sometimes science
Bill told us that he has been involved with Water since 1965 and has worked on projects both here and overseas. Water, he said is an emotional topic. Everyone has an opinion which is usually not based on fact. It has become a political football and this has obscured the science. Since the arrival of Europeans in the late 18th Century the landscape has been changed greatly. Large areas of forests have been cleared, livestock introduced as well as exotic species for example carp into our rivers and waterways. As Dorothea McKellar so beautifully described Australia in her poem 'My Country", it is a land of droughts and flooding rains. Rainfall averages also vary. Quoting a researcher Dr. Zhang, Bill said that data showed an 18% increase in rainfall in the period 1950 to 1990 compared with the period 1900 to 1950. From 1990 to the present the average has reverted to the earlier period average by 18%. Our environment has evolved to adapt to drought and flood. For example the River Red Gums benefit from drought. It has been discovered that this species of tree loses structural integrity when it is exposed to constant water availablility. The Macquarie river averages a flow of 1,489 gigalitres but in the years 18/19 there was only 87 gigalitres. Similar low flows have been experienced in other systems. A standard allocation of water on the Murrumbidgee river is 972 Megalitres. Water licences are registered with the Land Titles Office and can be traded. Bizarrely enough water licences can be traded between unconnected rivers, as long as the same allocation arrives at the end point of the Murray Darling system. It is impossible to do justice to Bill's talk in this bulletin. A myriad of graphs, bullet points and statistics supported Bill's talk which was listened to attentively by all present. PP Paul Milde gave a vote of thanks on behalf of the club and many stayed after the meeting to have a chat with Bill. |
