As my Mum has always said ... "He doth protest too much".

Good idea John Clements, let us all just give up on the lower lakes and open the barrages to the ocean Salt Water! And by doing that, Namoi, and all the other water greedy irrigators can keep taking the life out of the Murray/Darling, like there is no tomorrow.

Some common sense in this discussion at last.

At last some common sense! It's about time someone looked from the inside out and not from the outside in.

Typical, ill-informed environmental vandal mouthing off. Some of Australia's most productive agricultural land surrounds the lower lakes. Is there a better wine region in Australia than Langhorne Creek, the most efficient dairies in Australia (used to) surround the Lakes. At least we don't have open channels and unsustainable permanent plantings to put good water on!!

how long before people realise it is not just simply letting the sea water in, you have to be able to maintain an open mouth system to keep the water tidal. Without river flow the mouth just silts up. To maintain the mouth open under no river flows requires a dredge to be stationed permanantly at the mouth. Wave action on a exposed coastline will close it all the time. As for closing down farms, listen and read and you will see that a lot of farmers around the lakes have already closed their irrigation systems down. Everyone who takes water out of the system above a viable level of extraction is living in a unsustainable environment. Just look at the Aral sea in Russia.

It amazes me how the eastern states seem totally unaware of what this entire country is facing. It's not a question of which state is unsustainable or responsible - in fact we are all to blame.

In fact if the eastern states looked further into their irrigation and crops they would see they are more responsible for the dying Murray. SA phased out the dirt channels decades ago ... VIC and NSW are still in the "dark ages" using these. It's sad when you see their waterways lower than these channels coming out of them.

They also need to address their flood irrigation solely to control weeds (rice) - Barley and Wheat growers in SA use herbicides and machinery. Perhaps they should look into their own viability in farming, their crops are NOT suitable for our climate or environment.

Wake up!!! We all need to address the issue of the Murray before we loose our country's life-line. Every state needs to!!!

Imagine if they decided to dam off Lakes Entrance in Victoria so a few dairy farmers could run cows using the resultant fresh water in the lake? Returning the lakes to their original state can hardly be called environmental vandalism. And Langhorne creek will now have piped water from a pipeline, so what's the problem?

Typical!!! What would we all expect from someone further up the river. These self-righteous environmental thugs who stuffed up the river to start with. As someone who works within the South Australia irrigation and water industry, our State is doing everything possible to manage and use the limited water supply which we have. If the egotistic imbiciles up the river did only half of what South Australian are doing in terms of water conservation and management, we would have solved this problem years ago. But then again what can we expect with the political power in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

I'm raised in SA, farming in NSW, so I'm fairly unbiased. Irrigating land in some regions is beyond comprehension. Before we start, I'm not a fan of cubbie. The riverland, and Mildura regions are a prime example. No real water holding capacity, just red dirt. Water use figures on this country vs Nth NSW and Sthn Qld is horrendous. SA farmers can only dream of cereal yields that they achieve through the irrigation areas of Nth NSW and Qld. Cotton is using less water per ha then say lucerne and wine grape growers along the murray, oh yeah i forgot we need wine. Whole towns rely on irrigation, specifically cotton. Not just small towns. Look at towns such as Moree. Dying, its population was 12000. In normal weather cycles, irrigated cotton was the thrid largest ag industry, behind cattle and wool.

Sending water down, now that is inefficient. But i guess as long as they don't touch the irrigators on the murray. If you bought 50000 mg/l on the border rivers, and let it all go at once, 20000 might make it. Let it go at 1000 a day, hell if any made it to bourke it would be a miracle. Then they would just stock pile it at Broken Hill and the murray still loses. Why don't we just move every one out of Broken Hill so that we don't need to hold water up in the desert. More evaporates a day in the lakes than most cities daily usage. Then we could just pipe it. An idea would be to future proof areas. Why not send water along a canal from Pt Augusta, to Lake Eyre (the ocean is supposedly rising anyway and the lake is below sea level). Nuke plants for power, Desal plants every 200k, open up inland areas. Extra beach front, move some of the population out. Seems outlandish, but then 50 years ago so was the snowy scheme. Australia was young and visionary then. Now we are just older and prefer to whinge and blame others. That's the pom in us I guess.

over the years what has South Australia and Victoria been doing? where is the water infrastructure that they built? if i'm correct they have done bugger all. SA has water out the centre, why not pipe it or why have they not built dams? the same can be said for Vic - they really have no one to blame but themselves for not taking advantage of the good times that they have had. stop bitching and do something constructive get your own governments to do something.