Source:  The Australian (Sydney, Australia), Dec 5, 2002 pB14.
                                                                              
    Title:  Salt on the wounds of a dry country.(Features)(Review)(Column)
                                                                              
Locations:  Australia

Byline: Asa Wahlquist


Salinity: Australia's Silent Flood


8pm, ABC


WITH the drought focusing attention on Australia's land and water management,
the Wentworth Group of scientists provoking debate over that management, and
the Prime Minister having committed himself to tackling these issues, this
program is timely.


From the moment Diver Dan, sorry, David Wenham, turns his gaze from the ocean
behind him to the camera and says ``... we must love it because the vast
majority of Australians choose to live within an hour's drive of the coast,
but the ocean ... has also given us our greatest environment problem of the
21st century'' you know you are in for an interesting, even challenging,
viewing experience.


The series begins, as it should, by clearly answering the basic but often
poorly understood questions about dryland salinity.


Where does the salt come from? (Answer: the ocean, some in rain, most blown in
on the wind for hundreds of thousands of years.) But why is it so much worse
in Australia? Because our continent is old, without the ice sheets and the
volcanic activity that scoured other lands, or fast flowing rivers to flush
salt out to sea.


There are some mind-boggling figures in this series, but writer/producer
Michael Sexton carefully doles them out: enough to astonish, but not so many
as to overwhelm.


Like this: beneath one square metre in the West Australian wheat belt, there
lies a tonne of salt, very deep in the ground. Or this: 15 billion trees were
felled to fuel river boats along the Murray-Darling river system, and to build
fences, wharves and houses. Or how about this: engineering works along the
Murray pump out 11,000 tonnes of salt a day. Without that, the River Murray
would be unusable for several months a year.


Then there are the paradoxes: like the one of the title, that our dry land is
drowning in salt. Or that outlined by the CSIRO's John Williams tonight. While
our native vegetation used just about all the rainfall, the annual crops and
pastures we replaced it with do not. The unused water seeps into the
groundwater, absorbs the salt, then rises. Thus our country, where the main
limiting factor is a lack of water, is ruined by too much water in the form of
rising water tables and their salty load.


The program points out that irrigation has always led to salinity. The first
evidence of salinity in the worst-affected state, Western Australia, was seen
in the 1890s, and was scientifically linked to clearing by the 1920s.


But still we clear. In 2000, 6878 square kilometres of bushland was cleared
across Australia, making Australia fifth largest land clearer in the world,
after Brazil, Indonesia, DRC (Congo) and Bolivia.


While the program states there is no virtually no salinity in Queensland, a
report produced after the program was made, found 48,000ha in that state
affected by dryland salinity.


And do not think this is just a farm problem. It affects western Sydney, not
to mention a large number of country towns.


And the biggest cost of all? Fixing roads affected by dryland salinity.


It is not all bad news. In fact the best news comes from farmers, such as
Peter Andrews from NSW's Hunter Valley, who restored his paddocks to the
natural system of water flow, not only fixing his salinity problem, but
ensuring thick pasture growth through the current drought.


In Western Australia, farmers are planting alleys of trees, and mosaic
farming. Along the Murrumbidgee they are saving their water run-off.


The series consults all the main players, and if it has a fault, it is that
there is not time to do each justice.


The four-part series ends with Landcare founder Rick Farley, saying darkly
that we will do the right thing eventually: the real question is how much
country will be left then.


Salinity: Australia's Silent Flood, is essential viewing for anyone interested
in Australia's future.
                                                                              
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