[Aqualist] Quaternary science in the news

[Tim Barrows]

Article from:  <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/>The Australian 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24899316-5006787,00.html

TESTING to be conducted this month at Lake Albert, the smaller of 
South Australia's stricken lower lakes, is expected to show the lake 
used to be "an ephemeral wetland", supporting calls for the pumps 
currently topping it up from Lake Alexandrina to be switched off.

A study by paleoecologist Jennie Fluin will date core samples taken 
from the lake's centre to show salinity levels over the past 6000 years.

"At the moment there is a lot of water being pumped from Lake 
Alexandrina into Lake Albert, principally because of the acid 
sulphate situation, but it wouldn't surprise me ... if in the past it 
was an ephemeral wetland, not a filled basin as Lake Alexandrina 
was," said Dr Fluin, a research fellow at the University of Adelaide.

"Instead of sacrificing two big lakes, if Lake Albert was naturally a 
completely different system, then why not return it to what it was?"

Other environmental scientists such as David Paton, also from the 
University of Adelaide, have proposed removing Lake Albert from the 
Murray System by cutting it off from Lake Alexandrina at Narrung.

"Lake Albert has never been looked at," Dr Fluin told The Australian. 
"We have absolutely no idea what the level of connectivity was with 
Lake Alexandrina in the past, and also the level of connectivity with 
the ocean."

She suspects Lake Albert only filled in flood years, and suggests 
that lime or revegetation would be a better option to neutralise the 
acid sulphate soil - caused by exposure of the lake bed to the air - 
than covering the soil with water.

The Rann Government continues to prepare for possible saltwater 
flooding of the lower lakes, undertaking early site works while it 
initiates the environmental impact statement ordered by federal 
Environment Minister Peter Garrett last week.

Dr Fluin undertook the study of soil core samples from Lake 
Alexandrina, revealed in The Australian last week, with fellow 
paleoecologist Peter Gell, but she argues that the estuarine 
character of the lakes has been exaggerated.

Dr Fluin said that, although testing behind the Goolwa barrage showed 
strong mixing of salt and freshwater over the past 6000 years, 
samples taken beside Point Sturt, at the southern end of Lake 
Alexandrina, were largely freshwater. She said the saltwater 
proportion of the lake had peaked more than 2000 years ago, apart 
from a blip at the start of the 20th century when high levels were 
extracted upstream for irrigation channels.

Dr Fluin is undertaking her study with $10,000 from the University of 
Adelaide, after repeated attempts to gain funding from the South 
Australian and federal governments.

South Australian senator Nick Xenophon has called for the Rann and 
Rudd governments to complete a full independent audit of all 
available water in the Murray-Darling system before making a final 
decision on whether to open the lower lakes to the sea.

A spokesman for federal Water Minister Penny Wong said yesterday an 
audit by the Murray Darling Basin Commission took place in August and 
would be regularly updated.

But Senator Xenophon dismissed the audit as a "joke".