The Wire

Today the pipeline which will bring fresh water to farms around the stressed Murray mouth was officially opened. For dairy farmers like Lorraine Leese it’s too late – she and her husband were forced to sell their cows when the water became too polluted. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is angry that the piped water will cost farmers three thousand dollars to connect up to. Former Independednt Commissioner for the Murray Darling Basin Ian Kowalick says floods in the north cannot have any effect on the parched basin and that the only solution is to reduce allocations all along the river.