G'day everyone, and welcome to this month's edition of River Reach. We've decided to try something different by doing a video introduction rather than the usual written introduction.
I'd like to talk just a little bit about the floods that have had such a massive impact right across the Basin. Our thoughts go out to all of the communities that have been impacted by these devastating events. Now many communities facing the very challenging prospect of clean-up.
We're also seeing that water making its way South Down the Murray into SA and we expect to see the flows of around 180,000 megalitres a day or maybe even more by early December, and that may continue through into the new year. To put that into some sort of perspective, the inflows that we are seeing to the Murray at the moment in November (and the system includes the Murrumbidgee and the Darling rivers and the Victorian tributaries) is seven times the the November average water flows in into the system. In October, rainfall in many parts of the Basin was the highest on record.
What we're also starting to see with these floods, of course, are water quality issues, as we're seeing the sediment coming in the river, increasing numbers of blackwater events, and that's having an impact. We are starting to see fish deaths, which is very distressing for many, but unfortunately there's very little we can do with the circumstances of the floods with water quality, but please take care and make sure that you remain in touch with your local authorities around these sorts of issues.
Recently I was in South Australia. I spent a great couple of days down in the Coorong and the Lower Lakes meeting with communities, farming communities, environment communities and also spent some time with the Ngarrindjeri people – the First Nations of the Lower Lakes and Coorong, and that was a fabulous experience to spend time with some people there, the Elders there that are just so connected to their land and to their water, and to understand a little bit more just how important a healthy river system is, and there are a lot of lessons that we can take from the way in which First Nations people steward the river system. That will be a big part of our focus going forward. I made remarks to that effect actually when I spoke to the National Press Club earlier this week.
I had the privilege of speaking to the National Press Club on Tuesday, the 22nd of November, which was ten years to the day from when Tony Burke, the then Environment Minister, also stood before the National Press Club and announced the Basin Plan had been passed into law.
Addressing the Press Club was a really great opportunity to be able to reflect on what's been achieved over that 10 year period and the success of the Basin Plan – what is really a world leading environmental reform of governments coming together to address a really, really difficult challenge that arose out of the Millennium drought and out of 100 years of overuse of the river system. And I was able to comment on the fact that we've recovered significant volumes of water for the environment and to reflect on the heavy lifting that have been done. That's been done by many communities and enabling that to be achieved. But the address also gave me the opportunity to make the point very clearly that we still have more work to do and we still have more to get done in order to meet the commitments of the Basin Plan. So it was a bit of a call to arms as well if you like, that the jobs not finished and we have to keep the shoulder to the wheel to deliver what States and Commonwealth signed up to 10 years ago.
I hope you enjoy this edition of River Reach and I look forward to talking to you all next month. See you soon.