<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/23/governments-failed-to-deliver-160m-of-river-improvements-including-for-now-parched-nsw-wetlands-report-finds>
"Two state governments have drastically underdelivered more than $160m in
infrastructure measures to improve river health in the northern Murray-Darling
basin eight years since they were promised, a major independent review has
found.
This includes failure by the New South Wales government to secure any of the
private land access needed to improve water flows over floodplains in the
state’s Gwydir region, where scientists had to scramble to rescue turtles in
dried up wetlands last week.
A separate NSW government project to install passages to help fish migrate
around barriers in waterways has delivered just 64km (3%) of the original
2,135km target, with the target later reduced to 589km.
In Queensland, promised refurbishments and upgrades to weirs also never
proceeded past the feasibility stage, the review by the federal inspector
general of water compliance, Troy Grant, found.
Grant’s report, published on Wednesday, found the NSW and Queensland
governments had “severely underdelivered” on promised infrastructure and
engineering measures under a program known as the “Northern Basin Toolkit”.
“Quite simply the environment is the loser along with the taxpayer,” Grant told
Guardian Australia.
The toolkit was agreed to by the NSW, Queensland and federal governments to
deliver actions that would improve river health without adding extra water.
The program was intended to compensate for a 2018 federal decision to reduce
the amount of environmental water for the region from 390bn litres a year to
320bn litres. Environmental flows refer to water released by the government
from dams and tributaries into rivers and ecosystems to restore their health.
Governments agreed to deliver infrastructure and policy measures to enable
water to flow into wetlands more easily, increase fish populations and to
protect environmental water from pumping as it moved downriver.
The federal government committed $166m over the program’s life, with a deadline
for completion of the projects of the end of this year.
“The failure of the Northern Basin Toolkit program raises the question of how
can Australians really trust their governments to deliver their promises to
look after the rivers,” said Prof Jamie Pittock from the Australian National
University and chair of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.
“The failure to implement what was promised means that turtles, fish and
wetlands die.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
