pH In Australian Lagoon Hits 1.8 As Drought Combines W. Sulphates In Soils To Acidify Murray River

[hatrack]

STRETCHES of the Murray River are turning into the corrosive equivalent of battery acid, in further evidence the devastating drought is causing more harm to the nation's iconic watercourse. Scientists are warning that acid sulphate soils are turning river banks and billabongs into death traps for fish and birds and hazards for humans.

It is impossible for animals to survive NSW's Bottle Bend lagoon, which now has a pH -- or acidity -- level dropping as low as 1.8 -- equivalent to the sulphuric acid found in car batteries. And it is corrosive to the touch. The waterway is just one of dozens of sites throughout South Australia, NSW and Victoria which falling water levels have turned into aquatic graveyards.

Paula D'Santos, project officer for the NSW Murray Wetlands Working Group, says the alarm was raised at Bottle Bend, upstream from Mildura, when the lagoon's pH fell from a healthy seven to a deadly three after it became cut off from the river's main flow. Fish died in their thousands, the banks were lined with toxic aluminium and manganese salts and the gnarled red gums on its banks began to die. "It is like a scene from the apocalypse. It's just incredible," Ms D'Santos says.

University of Adelaide, CSIRO and Wentworth Group scientist Mike Young sees it as a final warning to revive the Murray before it is too late. "Bottle Bend's nightmare is the first sign we are now changing the River Murray system irrevocably ... "Irrigators and environmentalists both need to be alarmed. This is the time to radically change the way we manage the River Murray system from top to bottom."

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23040504-30417,00.html

[GliderGuider]

1. Perhaps ex-PM John Howard would benefit from a full-immersion baptism...

[cedric]

2. .

As the Chinese saying goes we're living in interesting times

[NNadir]

3. Wow.

[gulfcoastliberal]

4. Are they still allowing the insane Cubby Station cotton plantation to drain the river?

That would be really disturbing.