Four years ago, millions of dead fish were found dead near Menindee, NSW. Now it's happened again, with one expert pointing the finger at the state government.
An expert claims NSW is deliberately sabotaging the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.As authorities continue the mammoth task of cleaning up millions of decomposing fish from the Darling-Baaka River at Menindee, NSW, locals have been left angry and confused – wondering how an environmental crisis of such scale could happen again.
Like almost everyone in the town, Mr McCrabb believes the real culprit is water mismanagement. And they’re not alone.In 2019 millions of fish died in the same stretch of the Darling-Baaka. The fish suffocated in disjointed pools of water during a record-breaking drought. “For a decade, NSW has been choosing not to implement the parts of the Plan that disadvantage the irrigation community, while doing everything it can not to deliver water for the environment. And I would add that’s a view shared by most objective observers.”Freshwater ecologist Richard Kingsford was part of the independent Vertessy review panel.
The MDBA said fish passages would not have helped in either fish kill, while the NSW government pointed to the so-called ‘Better Baaka Project’, which aims to improve river connectivity between the northern and southern Basin.In February, the NSW government resubmitted almost all of its 20 water resource plans to the MDBA – four years late – after the Basin authority found the previous plans failed to meet basic requirements.
CEO of the National Irrigator’s Council, Isaac Jeffrey, rejected suggestions that irrigators received preferential treatment, claiming human needs like drinking water were prioritised. But buybacks are controversial, the NSW water minister warning they would be “a massive blow” to Basin communities reliant on irrigation.
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