Mount Canoblas the centre of a drainage catchment I visited and videoed in 2010 and pointed out the problems that would eventually result in a disastrous flood in 2022
Mount Canobolas is the centre of all the streams radiating out from this map. Mount Canobolas volcanic soils a very porous and surface water is collected underground in the fractured rock aquifers covering this entire area.
The blue shaded area on this map which is the Mandagery Creek catchment contains some of those streams radiating out from Mount Canobolas potentially carrying water right to the Lachlan River below Eugowra
Map of entitlement distribution (total volume of shares) for the orange basalt ground water source. This water source is adjacent to the Mandagery Creek water source.
I wrote the following poem. I videoed the above video. Recorded the above audio all in 2010. Pointing out the problems of overuse of our vital ecsystems 15 years ago.
Google earth doesn't lie
It's shows the earth from the sky . The Upper Lachlan catchment isn't flat
we can be sure of that.
What I see. No tree,
only water carved wrinkles . Free to carve deeper
. Run water run and scour.
It's a joke that you can no more soak
Look, look down at the manhandled Mandagery
It's a shame.
It's just a drain.
To speed the rain.
Sudden storm like an express train
. Winds it's way to a salty end on the Lachlan plain.
We've got the brains to slow the rains . And there are some good souls go to pains
. As a bystander I am shocked
by the stocks impact.
Piecemeal it won't heal.
How much floggen and delog'n . How much pug'n and bog'n.
Join together.
Make a chain to restrain the flow . A chain of land owners to recreate the chain of ponds
. A chain of resistance to stock . A virtual lock on vulnerable land.
Collar the cattle.
Shock the stock of that block.
Give them some other till it can recover
. GPS not only a factor in steering ya tractor
. Steers the stock.
They yield to a virtual field.
photo curtesy ABC news.
Eugowra. Main Street during the 2022 floods.
look at the monitor bores around Mount Canobolas groundwater catchment
Look at the extent of the catchment called Mount Canobolas groundwater
All of the lachlan catchment surface water sources
Extraction rates from bores around Mount Canobolas ground water source
Recharge of Canobolas ground water sources in good years
Recharge of Canobolas ground water sources in poor years
Bores in the Canobolas ground water source and also the Lachlan fold belt fractured rock water source
More bores in the Canobolas groundwater source
I acknowledge that use of data from Google Earth and the New South Wales government websites
They set the standard we won’t leave them stranded. Won’t dare.
Although the world all around is in confusion.
The beauty of this place is not an illusion.
This profusion
Of natural things .
The bird that sings.
The fishing rings.
The middens of muscle.
The waders that hustle.
The reeds that rustle.
I love to partake in the lake.
And it’s ecology for my psychology.
To float on its waters and feel the wind prevail on a sail.
This Stress.
Becomes distress.
If I don’t address.
The reason.
In every season.
for my being depressed.
And if I know anything about faces.
So are all the rest, coming to recuperate by it’s waters.
Hold hands with those who care. Those who really cared are gone. Long long ago Bark Boats plied, but the paddlers died. Their descendants vilified. Were offered and olive branch but they didn’t like olives. Were denied sovereignty and offered a sovereign. The currency was foreign. The foreigners were abhorrent. Swept them away in a turbulent torrent. Song lines severed. Drifted down stream. Beyond dreamtime dream. Scrambling to the banks and rambling and clinging to mother earth. They knew what it was worth. They know what it is worth
Acknowledge their sovereignty with more than a sovereign.
Remove the boundaries mental and material. Remove the procrastination on Truth and Reconciliation Will we ever be a united nation? We can’t go on disregarding the occupation. Eddie Vagg
I acknowledge Craig Cromlins photography of the boys in the boat
Can we justify. The means of existence. The unbalanced way we disregard all for our own ends. We can and we do despite the evidence to the contrary. We need six planets to sustain our way of life. Then it would still put each planet we invade out of tilter. Because we still haven’t realised the link with every facet of the universe we live in. The chain. The chain of unbroken systems that support all the elements of this amazing planet. The ancient tribes did!.
deep gouged out channels.
drained flood plains.
Bovine belted banks.
No thanks
We can’t deny extraction. That is part of the symbiosis of entities. Every entity relies on something for its existence. It’s the over extraction and destruction of a link that upsets the equilibrium.
I got a plan. The Bureau of Metrology got the wherewithal. Using their regularly updated soil moisture map of Australia. The soil carbon maps of Australia. The saltation studies. The rainfall records.
The northern indigenous tribes have the wherewithall : The reestablishment of native perennial pastures using fire.
My Plan A
The use of GPS collared cattle. The use of Drovers. Remove the fences mental and material.
The wilder beast herds of old in Africa followed the feed across the veldt. And still do.
The bison did the same across America. Their journey ended when they were ere slaughtered by the invaders to starve the Indians out of existence.
The Spanish Shepard’s for thousands of years drove their stock across Spain following the pastures and still do.
Graziers of the Riverina moved their stock to the summer pastures of the high country of the Southern alps. Until they proved a danger to precious bogs.
Kidman the Pastoralist had his properties from northern to southern Australia to take advantage of Northern Rains of summer and the southern rains of winter.
We with modern technology could have our herds follow the feed.
The square paddock mentality for cropping and grazing brought to this great Southland from European conditions. Conditions that even European farmers are finding are destructive. It has to change. Cell grazing would work close to major centres where compost is available to regenerate tired soils.
Saltation of our land and water was held in check by our First Nation people knowingly or unknowingly by the way they used the land and its waters
Our settlers knowingly or unknowingly have left a timebomb . That time bomb was salination. Salt was ubiquitous in the Australian environment. It resides in our marine origin sedimentary rocks and saline ground water. Tree cover. perennial grasses and native farmers kept the system in this variable climate in sync .
It’s not to late to On riverside, log jams and overflows on floodplains maintained wet marshy swamps and billabongs*. This environment kept salt from surfacing. The soggy flood plains refreshed our fresh water streams and aquifers . They remained seeping and weeping through droughts. The rivers scour now freed of log jams. Just a channel for water orders to arrive on time. Bowmaster
A huge study of salt in the environment has been undertaken since European settlement. Today we have the bad news from minister of environment and heritage that this time bomb like land mines is being triggered by our land use and we have to change the way we do things.
While southern Australia shows little shift towards wetter or drier conditions for Autumn 2019 the past two to three decades have seen a decline in autumn rainfall. For example, from 1990, 24 of the 29 years have brought below average rainfall to southeast Australia (below the 1961-1990 average).
In addition to the natural drivers such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation and the Indian Ocean Dipole, Australian climate patterns are being influenced by the long-term increasing trend in global air and ocean temperatures. SAM a system in the southern ocean is moving our southern fronts further south.
*Peter Andrews (rebuilding wet floodplains)
I can see the answer to disillusionment.
But i dont want to put my finger on it. It feels as if it would alienate me. Isolate me from where i am or imagine i am in my community.
I see the problem and the answer as divisive.
(Excuse me there is a willy wagtail knocking on my window). Oh he’s just picking last nights trapped insects off
the window. One of these days i will learn to communicate with them. (Love their energy.)
I suppose that is my view of the world as a human. Nothing in the cosmos is alien to me. Every thing is a link in the chain. Broken disillusioned people are broken links.
Trauma
I don’t expect any of us from the environment we call lake Cargelligo have anything to do with the trauma that was inflicted on the first people after the first fleet arrived. It’s the present day traumas that are perpetrated. These are the ones we are responsible for, as a people’s . As people’s, we can do something about. Do something about the traumas here and now. If we don’t then we are as guilty as our forebears.The traumas that exist in this community have their roots in natural ecosystems that Lake Cargelligo is so blessed with. Human beings need the natural environment to maintain equilibrium. Every thread of existence every thread of this web every ounce of our being depends on this web.
There’s other ways to pull away from a depressive road. At present too many are falling, crushed by the pressure to conform. Conform is the norm when it comes to violence. It’s normal to bash your partner to be big amongst your mates. Crowing to them that she gets what she deserves. Nailing the perpetrators. Is hard. Jailing the perpetrators is harder. Community unity to change the culture. Destroy the vulture who preys on our mind. We can all write. Express yourself. Honestly write what is depressing you. Write what’s makes you happy. We can put all these community stories together. Put them together on stage in the old theatre to expose our lack of understanding as a community
CargelligoWetlands 