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the australian farmer
industry, have ideas that are worth considering. Simon advocates that the Mount Foxton Dam pro- posal is another possible way of offering greater water security to both the eastern and western regions of the Great Dividing Range without the use of tunnels, pipelines or pumping units. This is achieved by substituting the proposed Hells Gate Dam with a far more appropriate structure 30 kilo- metres downstream to the Gorge situated Mt Fox- ton. At this location, a dam will be far higher than the Hells Gate Dam having an RL 380 which will be able to provide two discharge gravity outlets to ser- vice both the East (RL 300) and West (RL 350) river- bed sides of the Range. For the world’s driest inhabited continent, Aus- tralia’s next 5 to 10 year crippling drought is surely not a matter of if but when. While there are drip- feed improvements in attitudes happening and plenty of people with good opinions worth listening to on this nationally important commodity, what’s really needed is a tsunami of orchestrated action before it’s too late.
attracted an historic AUD5.4 billion funding pack- age from the Federal Government, has great poten- tial to improve the “drought proofing” of regional Australia as largely serviced by the Murray Darling river system. Nationally recognised water specialists like Simon Cowland-Cooper, a recent Order of Australia award recipient for his services to the irrigation
Warwick Lorenz is Managing Director of Australian Pump Industries and a veteran of the water industry. He occasionally writes for various magazines.
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