Australia works to restore once-mighty Snowy River

Local governments in Australia have agreed to a plan to rejuvenate the Snowy River, which currently has been reduced to a trickle in some areas

October 6, 2000
Web posted at: 3:01 PM EDT (1901 GMT)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- It was one of the great waterways of the world's driest continent, reduced to a muddy trickle by a grand scheme to convert arid lands to verdant fields and power the growth of Australia's biggest cities.

After decades of debate and infighting, state authorities agreed Friday to return the once-mighty Snowy River to, if not a cascading torrent, then at least a respectable flow.

The $160 million project, announced Friday by the governors of Victoria and New South Wales states, will increase the Snowy's flow to 28 percent of its capacity within 15 years.

The Snowy River, celebrated in Australian folklore via one of the country's most famous poems, A.B. Patterson's "The Man from Snowy River," and a film by Oscar-winning director George Miller, has for years run at 1 percent of capacity at its source, high in Australia's Great Dividing Range about 63 miles southwest of the capital, Canberra.

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In one of the world's most ambitious irrigation and hydroelectric power schemes, it was diverted from Australia's already well-watered east coast toward land to the west of the mountains, where water was in short supply but critical to expanding Australia's agricultural industries.

Between 1949 and 1974, more than 100,000 workers burrowed giant tunnels through mountains, built dams and constructed huge pipelines for the project. Tens of thousands of migrant workers were brought in for the task.

The Snowy River Scheme now pumps 1.8 trillion gallons of water -- enough to fill Sydney Harbor 13 times over -- into the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers west of the Great Dividing Range, which splits the east coast from the rest of Australia.

Already stressed by demand for irrigation, pollution from agricultural runoff and rising salinity levels, the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers could have dried up without water from the Snowy.

The project also supplies power to Australia's southeast, including the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

Conservationists and locals along the Snowy's original route have for years urged reviving the river, which they say has been reduced to a series of muddy, weed-choked pools at its highest reaches.

Conservationists welcomed Friday's announcement.

"Today represents a historic turnaround in the health of the Snowy," said Peter Garrett, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation. "It symbolizes a major shift in our nation's treatment of our rivers."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Snowy River National Park

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