Why have engineers installed pumping sites in the Murray Darling Basin and how do they help control salinity?
Engineering solutions really have brought us the space for the last decade otherwise the River Murray would be in a very parlous state. To put it in context we need to look at it like this. Along the river Murray I have 80 kilometres of bore field, that’s 80 kilometres of the river with bores along pumping 1100 tones of salt away from the river every day 365 days a year. That costs us as a community two million dollars a year in power. Now if we were to switch those pumps off the River Murray would be unusable for two, three or four months each year. That’s reality and that intervention has already occurred and without it we wouldn’t have the luxury to have a look at land based solutions.
