First Nations people say the Darling Baaka River is sick. A report confirms it
Locals remember a time when they used to let their kids swim in the Darling Baaka river at Menindee in far west New South Wales. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
In short:
Locals say they are too scared to swim in the river at Menindee due to its poor health.
A recent report by the Darling Baaka River Health project finds its degraded condition is largely due to alterations in natural flow.
What's next?
An ANU researcher says the findings must translate into action.
Fred Bennett's people have always been tied to the river that snakes through their outback community.
The Darling Baaka River is life to the Barkindji people and other Indigenous mobs around Menindee in far west New South Wales.
But lately, something is wrong with the river, the Barkindji ranger says. And people are scared.
Even children will not swim in the waterway that is so central to their identity and way of life.
"Make you [feel] pretty depressed," Mr Bennett said.
Fred Bennett says people are too scared to let their kids swim in the Darling Baaka River. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
"Like, everyone that lives here, along the river [has] gotta live off water and … without water, you know, we got nothing."
Like so many others, Mr Bennett grew up swimming in the Darling Baaka. Today, even when temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius, not even children will enter the water.
"Back in the day, we used to swim in this river," he said.
"Not today … We're too scared to even let the kids go and swim in the river these days."
It is a sentiment that sums up the findings of a recent NSW government-funded project looking at the health of the Darling Baaka between Wilcannia, in the far west of the state, and Wentworth, near the Victorian border.
The Darling Baaka River Health Project 2023 to 2025 found that water quality and biodiversity conditions throughout the majority of the sub-catchments are in poor to very poor condition.
Fred Bennett (left) and Greg Williams talk with Kathryn Korbel (centre). (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
Scientists were in the far west last week to report the findings to the Wilcannia and Menindee communities.
"We heard stories from the mob at Wilcannia the other day … asking questions around rashes for people who've been swimming during the summer," said Angus Ferguson, a senior environmental scientist at the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Dr Ferguson said these skin rashes were directly related to the harmful algal blooms, which have been recorded in the river throughout the project.
Natural flow alteration
While the findings came as no surprise to the communities, independent project manager Kathryn Korbel said this report was more extensive and thorough than previous ones.
"We know that there's fatigue out there in the community," Dr Korbel said.
Kathryn Korbel says the report is an extensive study of the river between Wilcannia and Wentworth. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
"They've seen scientists come in and look at the river and tell them, 'Yeah, it's not great.'"
The project was commissioned in response to the large floods in 2023 and looked at the health of the river over six major indicators: geomorphology, hydrological stress, riparian vegetation, biological condition, water quality and landscape disturbance.
Overall, the project found that the poor river condition in most indexes was due to the alteration of natural flow by water extraction and river regulation.
Scientists report the findings of the Darling Baaka River Health project to the communities of Menindee (pictured) and Wilcannia. (Supplied: Kathryn Korbel)
"Over the last 200 years, the entire Murray-Darling Basin has been subjected to widespread changes to flows associated with river regulation," the report concluded.
Menindee has the poorest health
Dr Korbel said Menindee had the poorest health in the study area.
"We're looking at really degraded water quality in that region, and that's reflected in the biota that we're finding," the Macquarie University senior lecturer said.
"So we're finding pollution-tolerant species. We're not finding those species that need that pristine water to survive. We're also finding a lot of carp.
The Darling River at Menindee had the poorest health of the whole study area. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
"I suppose some of the other changes that we've seen are the changes in vegetation and clearing of the area, [which] is leading to the formation of alluvial gullies."
The alluvial gullies contribute to the sediment load of the river, which contributes to turbidity, or the murkiness of the water.
"We're seeing nutrients, turbidity and algal concentrations way above the guideline values for those parameters. And we're also finding that … there are a lot of issues in the weir pool itself," Dr Korbel said.
"The other main issues that we were seeing were issues with the sustainability and the viability of the river red gum communities around the river."
Smart water buoys monitoring depth
While the majority of the project has been completed with the release of the report, six water buoys will remain in the river until June next year to monitor water quality.
Kathryn Korbel with one of the water buoys in the Darling Baaka River near Menindee. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
They measure the water at four depths every 30 minutes, which is then uploaded to the Natural Hazards Science Hub website.
Dr Ferguson, who sits on the water managers group, said the smart buoys were also being used by water managers to prevent stratification of water.
He said water stratifies when it gets hot and leads to high concentrations of oxygen at the top and low levels of oxygen at the bottom, which can cause stress to aquatic animals.
"The one lever that we have to try to manage this stratification in the whirlpool is releasing water to cause enough flow to break down the stratification," Dr Ferguson said.
Angus Ferguson (left) with Greg Williams and Fred Bennett. (ABC Broken Hill: Katherine Spackman)
"They look at the data from their smart buoys, and they decide whether they're going to do small pulse releases to be able to mix that water so that they increase the oxygen and prevent that harm to aquatic biota," Dr Korbel said.
Despite the buoys, Dr Korbel said she could not rule out another fish kill happening.
Time to act, advocate says
Broken Hill-based water justice research and river advocate Dan Schulz from the Australian National University said the report's findings needed to translate into action.
"A lot of what is needed is changes within the flow regime, so in terms of how much water is getting into that river and at what times," Mx Schulz said.
"It would be a shame to see this programme kind of finish here and be another report that goes into the desk drawers of the machinery of government."
Dan Schulz says the findings from the report need to translate into regulatory action. (Supplied: Dan Schulz )
Mx Schulz said it was important that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan 2026 Review took into account the findings of this latest report.
"The federal [Murray Darling Basin] Authority and the NSW government could do a lot to work together in creating a real solution," they said.
"[There's] a really good opportunity here to achieve fantastic environmental outcomes for the Menindee Lakes and the Baaka Darling River by establishing better connectivity."