On the 17th of December 2019 PALM members had the pleasure of hosting Libby Coker MP for a tour of a couple of spots on the Moorabool River.
Despite still recovering from illness Libby was prepared to scramble through some of the less accessible areas to at least get some feel for the river and the beauty it still holds.
Therefore a big thank you to both Libby and Leigh for joining us to hear about the issues impacting arguably the State's most flow-stressed river the Moorabool. Unfortunately even with the modest environmental flows that were secured over a decade ago this is still a dying system.
Over allocation and extraction has seen the original 90ML per day that this river would have enjoyed at Batesford near its confluence with the Barwon had been reduced to just 10ML, well before taking into account the further reducing flows from climate change. It will take a big effort from all of us to ensure this river has more water left in it by water authorities and others in order to give it some prospects of survival.
15 years ago the Central Region Sustainable Water Strategy flagged an 2,000ML for the Moorabool when Geelong moved to treating recycled water for potable use. For this river that can not happen soon enough and PALM is grateful for Libby's support in helping to make this happen. Hopefully our state government takes note.