Book Review: A STRONG BROWN GOD .. the Mary River Diary

Author: Steven Lang

A Strong Brown God

Some seventeen years ago, in conversation with man from the state government’s Water Resources Commission, I made reference to Steven Lang who had just walked the length of the Mary River, from its source in the hills to the west of Maleny, to its mouth, beyond Maryborough, in the lee of Fraser island.

“Why would you want to do that?” was his response, and with those few words, I realised the chasm between his awareness of, and empathy with the Mary River, and my own.

In 1992, armed with the diaries of Stephen Simpson, the Crown Commissioner for Lands and Protector of Aborigines, and Christof Eipper a Lutheran priest who’d made the same trip almost 150 years previously, Steven Lang not only walked the river, but chronicled his journey and both his own thoughts and attitudes and those of people he encountered along the way.

In 1996 his musings and photographs became a play presented at Metro Arts in Brisbane. While the performance was excellent, its ephemeral nature always troubled me. Thus it was with some pleasure that I heard (as we were in the heat of the battle to save the Mary from Traveston Dam), that Steven was resurrecting “A Strong Brown God” in the form of a book.

And the eighteen year delay between walk and book has added some extra bonuses. Apart from Steven’s having become something of an acclaimed writer in the interim, with two novels to his credit, the book, for me, highlights some marked changes in attitude to the river.

When I was speaking to the Water Resources man, he was investigating a proposed sand and gravel operation, the sort that Steven found dotted along the length of the river, the dominant thinking of the time being that such operations were beneficial to “clean the river out a bit” with much of the sand being removed from the bed of the river itself.

In those days people seemed quite familiar with their “bit of the river” with not a great sense of connectedness with either upstream or down. I still have strong memories for the Mary River Congresses, commenced not long after Steven’s walk and organized by Peter Oliver, that drew together people from throughout the catchment, developing the whole sense of interconnectedness of a catchment.

I reflect that for the bulk of the time since Steven’s walk, the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee (MRCCC) has brought together many with an interest in the river and has fired and fuelled teams of water testers to visit the river and tributaries on a monthly basis to test water quality.

And who could overlook those who championed the Mary against calls for its damming, both in the early nineties at Cambroon, or more recently, at Traveston Crossing.

“A Strong Brown God” documents Steven’s walk with excellent photographs which may help those not so close to the river better understand the attachment of those who are, and the passion they hold for the river.

Steven’s book concludes that “ what the Mary Valley requires of me, and by extension, I suppose, of all of us who live within it, who benefit from its largesse, that we begin to sing it, which is another way of saying we learn to give it value, to actively love it.”

I’d like to think that in the time since Steven’s walk, all of us living along the Mary have learnt much, both of, and from the river, and that this will only grow richer with time.

Thank you Steven  not only for having the drive, back in 1992, to want to experience the river as a whole, from source to sea; not only for helping us to see it in a wider historical context, not only for being at the vanguard of a complete change in attitude to the river, but now for capturing all of that in this excellent book.

“A Strong Brown God, the Mary River diary” was launched to an appreciative audience of over 100 in Maleny a few moths back, and is available from all good bookshops or from the author at www.stevenlang.com.au for just $25.

Arkin during her 4-day kayak trip down the Mary River. image: Dan Lyons.

It’s often said that a picture paints a thousand words. Photographs of faces of anguish after the initial announcement, beautiful natural scenes that were so close to being lost forever and finally faces of joy and relief after the simple word, ‘no’ echoed throughout the Mary Valley.

Arkin Mackay’s images made the issue personal. They spawned far more than a thousand words. They brought us face to face with the product of government decisions.

And most importantly they reminded us that although a river can physically divide communities, rivers can also bring people together in a way not often seen before.

Ian Mackay, Arkin’s father, proudly reminds us about the importance of her work. (The ed)

When Arkin accepted her “Froggie” Environment Award for her role in the Mary River campaign, her acceptance speech was brief and humble.

“I'm absolutely besotted with my award,” said Arkin. “And I’m genuinely surprised to realise that what I thought was me just doing what I could for the campaign, has been really beneficial to quite a few people.” image: Jackie Smith.

“I can’t write submissions,” she said, “so I take photos.”

Arkin’s involvement in the Traveston campaign came after a decision, back in 2006, to make the then-parlous state of south-east Queensland’s dams more widely appreciated. This was before the Courier Mail had realised how simple it was to dispatch a photographer to Wivenhoe to produce cracked-mud images of its retreating water line.

It seemed a simple enough task, dig out photographs of dry dams and circulate them more widely, but it met a fundamental hitch. By and large, dams only get photographed when they’re full, so it’s perhaps not surprising that people come to think that a new dam comes already filled with water.

Arkin wasn’t daunted by the absence of images of dry dams and set out with her son Tanis and I, to visit and document failing dams across the state’s southeast, going as far north as the state’s most recent dam, Paradise Dam on the Burnett River.

What she found stretched the credibility of the notion that it was just population growth straining our water resources. Dam after dam was drying up, not just here but across the whole country, and it became pretty apparent that to think you were solving the water crisis by proposing another one was the height of folly.

Arkin’s graphic photographs appeared on her Stop Press website which she devoted entirely to “activism in pictures” and she went on to produce other albums.

One of the most memorable, “Something in the Water” tackled the residual phobia about drinking recycled water, highlighting the absurd assumption that water from rivers and dams is somehow of great quality, while recycled water, purified to a level far greater, is full of risks.

“Far from trying to scare people about the quality of the water people were drinking now, I just wanted to show the confidence we have in water treatment works to produce a safe product to drink,” she says.

Her 4-day kayak trip, with fellow photographer Chris van Wyk through the stretch of the Mary that would disappear under the dam gave a wider audience an understanding of what we stood to lose.

“Chris had taken these wonderful “algal-affro’ed” Mary River Turtle photos,”she explains,  “and I wanted to match these with shots of the vegetation in areas that could really only be readily accessed by canoe.”

As well, as these special albums, Arkin’s camera has been a regular chronicler of some of the highlights of the campaign, the rallies and actions, culminating in the jubilation at Peter Garrett’s Remembrance Day announcement.

“That was certainly a day the Mary Valley will never forget,” she says.

Arkin added a letter generator to the Stop Press website, ever expanded her mailing list, and played an important role in the more than 30,000 protest letters that went to politicians, both state and federal. She also produced posters, cards for both election campaigns and for fund-raising and was heavily involved in the photography for the Love, Mary book.

She has freely provided her photographs to reporters, writers and researchers and some of her Paradise Dam fishway photographs have been used in the Paradise Dam court case in the Federal Court.

Recognition of the role that Arkin and her camera have played in the campaign came just a few days after Peter Garrett’s “no” announcement, when she was contacted by the National Library asking permission to archive the Stop Press website as part of its history of the Traveston campaign.

Arkin protests that her effort was just one of many in fighting the dam.

The results, I think, say otherwise.

View Arkin’s images

Several hundred canoeists and supporters turned out to show their energy for battle was undiminished. Image Arkin Mackay stoppress.com.au

Three years to the day since Peter Beattie’s shock announcement of plans to build the dam, several hundred canoeists and supporters turned out to a “floatilla” to show their energy for battle was undiminished. Paddlers were shown lungfish breeding sites and turtle nesting beaches before taking part in ceremony, celebrations, speeches and entertainment.

“Today we’re celebrating the resilience of our community and the wider community,” said Save the Mary River Coordinating Group President Glenda Pickersgill.

“We’re celebrating that we have dug our heels in and mounted a very strong case against damming this river.”

“Peter Beattie may have called it ‘hardly pristine’, Anna Bligh may say it’s been damaged by farming, but the real test has to be what lives in there now and with a number of unique species, this is pretty impressive. International turtle experts are even coming to regard the Mary River as ‘ the turtle river’.

The truth is that the dam presently proposed is much smaller than Peter Beattie originally envisaged. When it became apparent that it would require federal EPBC (Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act) approval, the proposal was split into two stages. This means that the yield of the proposed Stage 1 is less than a third of the original proposal while the costs have more than doubled.

“This is why Premier Bligh was so keen not to make mention of the dam at her recent election launch.  The irony is that as soon as she was elected, she claimed a mandate to build it. Many in Brisbane remember her ‘delay’ announcement and think it’s on hold,” Ms Pickersgill said.

This was the third “floatilla” on the river, and was the biggest yet. After the first, in 2006, Greens Senator Bob Brown told opponents to be prepared for a long battle. When he visited the area in 2007, Roberto Epple of the European Rivers Network said to expect maybe a seven-year battle. From the looks of it, both pieces of advice have been well-heeded.

Dam opponents recently heard of a ‘milestone’ legal challenge to the Paradise Dam fishway which will be heard in the Federal Court in September. The case, mounted by the Wide Bay Burnett Conservation Council and a coalition of Environment groups is significant as the Paradise fishway is intended as the model for use on Traveston Dam should it go ahead.

“We’ve already won this on the science,” says Glenda,  “and it’s defeating itself on the economics. Sometime soon the penny will drop for this government and they’ll realise they can’t cry poor to nurses and teachers and public servants wanting better, fairer, conditions while they pour more money into the black hole that is the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal.”

In most cases, dam opposition has invaded every aspect of life in the Mary Valley - this poignant black bean pod boat is an entry in the Moy Pocket Brown Water Classic. Image: Arkin Mackay stoppress.com.au

Since 1988 the Brownwater Classic at Moy Pocket has lured both locals and those involved in the environment movement to a patch of riverine forest near Pickering Bridge on the Mary River.

It’s been a celebration of the river, in particular the blackbean tree, for it is the seed pods of this tree that provide the raw material for the tiny craft that enter the prestigious race. The Trophy, the Numabulla Cup (gold on plywood) is highly coveted.

In addition to the main race, there is a candle-lit evening event as well as a hotly contested rock-skipping contest.

This being the twentieth such event, the Commodore of the Moy Pocket Yacht Club is keen to invite past participants (as well as any who have consistently missed it) to this year’s memorable event on Saturday July 11 from 1pm.

Boats must be biodegradable and can be constructed on-site before the race which is scheduled for 3pm.  All boatbuilding material is provided. Barbecues and fires are also on hand but all food and drink requirements need to be brought along by participants, as well as chairs and warm clothing.

For enquiries contact the Commodore, Ian Mackay (07) 54460124 evenings.

(Pickering Bridge is three kilometres along Moy Pocket Road after it leaves the Kenilworth –Eumundi Road at Gheerulla Hall.  Gheerulla Hall is about 24 kilometres from Eumundi, or eight kilometres from Kenilworth.)

Illustration: Alex Mankiewicz

We’ve been plastered with glossy brochures, newspaper advertisements, emotive statements made by politicians in parliament and promises that they will drought proof southeast Queensland. You would be tempted to believe that the Government had done their homework and that dam building on the Mary River makes economic, environmental and social sense.

The State Government has in fact been mixing fact with fiction, to the point where they now live in a fantasy world of their own making; you could call it Anna in Wonderland.

If you believe in Anna’s Wonderland you’d see the Mary Valley as well suited for a dam.  In this wonderland a torrential river winds through steep hills and gorges.  Actually, the river is regularly about knee deep.  The valley does not rest on hard rock but the soft sandy sediments and clay of an alluvial flood plain with low, rolling hills. If ever flooded by building a wall 25 metres above ground level and 1.5 km long, the dam would only be five-metres deep on average, creating a gigantic swamp that will evaporate and seep a loss of over 2.5 meters every year.

Anna’s Wonderland story is believed by some very unprofessional and irresponsible members of the Queensland Government.  The Great Sandy Strait is home to migratory birds and all sorts of endangered species such as dugongs, turtles, dolphins and migrating breeding whales. The area is vital for commercial and recreational fisheries and the tourism value is around $440 million a year. Yet, an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) done on behalf of Queensland Water Infrastructure Pty Ltd (QWI) for the Queensland Government, stated that there would be no impact downstream of the dam wall.

The EIS speaks of abundant flows downstream.  After extracting 70,000 ML of water a year for Brisbane, they insist that there is enough to protect Fraser Island and the internationally significant wetlands of the Great Sandy Strait. Yet modelling by the Mary River Catchment Coordinating Committee shows that the flow would be cut to less than a quarter of the natural state if the dam had operated in 2006/2007.  Presently, farmers have not accessed their full allocations of water in three of the last six years and in fact, the last decade has seen flows in the Mary River down to about half of what was previously considered normal. This is a similar trend to what is occurring in the Murray River system.

So serious are the implications of this project, that Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett will be making the decision about the future of the proposed dam.  He will be considering the fate of the Mary River turtle, unique in the world for having gills in its tail and found only in this river; the Australian Lungfish which breathes the same way as humans do; the Mary River cod and diverse species of  frogs, insects and plants, among them 18 threatened species that need more  habitat, not less, if they are to survive well into the future.

The EIS proposes some unique and comical mitigation plans to preserve the species in the river.  Fish Ladders, a lift that elevates fish up and over the wall, are responsible for crushing and mutilating turtles in the moving parts of the device.  The Paradise Dam on the Burnett River near Bundaberg, has never operated its ladder since the dam was built, breaching the conditions in which that dam was approved by the Federal Government.  As for catch-and-carry turtle ramps, where people actually catch the turtles and help them use the ramp, the idea is untested and frankly, would only work in a Hannah Barbera cartoon.

In Anna’s Wonderland, you can have your swampy dams and no methane too.  This is despite research showing that dams are serious emitters of methane gas which is up to 75 times more potent than carbon over a 20-year period.  The Traveston Crossing Dam would be a manufacturer of methane gas and other nasties including methyl mercury which would remain in the food chain.  Aquatic weeds such as Water Hyacinth, Salvinia and others, will thrive, which are already proven to be unmanageable in the Mary and nearby Lake MacDonald.

In Anna’s Wonderland farmland is unlimited and unthreatened.  Our current knowledge about the impact of dams and weirs and rising salt destroying vast regions of the Murray River system is being ignored.  The Mary River is identified as a high priority area for salinity risk.  At a time when the fuel cost of getting food to markets is rapidly increasing, damming the Mary will shatter the productivity of a Sunshine Coast food bowl that supplies milk, beef, fruit, tropical and temperate crops and sugar.

As for water yield, stage 1 of the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam would, at best, supply less than 10 per cent of southeast Queensland’s future water needs. It would be half the size of the North Pine Dam, at a forecast cost exceeding $1.7 billion, with half a billion already spent.  During times of extended drought, the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam would be at dead storage level at least 24 months before the Somerset/Wivenhoe system.

In this wonderland, infrastructure is cost-free, carbon-neutral and water flows uphill.  There is no way in the known universe that Brisbane’s water supply can be sustainable if the proposed Traveston Crossing Dam is part of it.  If the Bligh Government suggests otherwise, they are asking us to believe in fairy tales.  Let’s not Murray the Mary.

Keep up to date with news and other information from the Save the Mary website.

Weighing in at over 20 kg, the EIS package for the dam may well have been the nations largest, but the number of submissions it has generated has also been of epic proportions.  The Sunshine Coast Daily reported that 16,488 submissions had been received by noon on the closing day, and staff advised that they were continuing to pour in throughout the afternoon.

After nearly three months, the Deputy Premier advised parliament recently that 11,261 submissions had been assessed after duplicates were removed.

While many of the submissions came from the Mary Valley in the vicinity of the dam, (headed by the Save the Mary’s 180 page response), by far the greatest number came from the area downstream. The recently-established, Maryborough-based Greater Mary Association generated some 10,000 individual submissions as well as its own 68-page critique of the EIS.

One has to wonder whether State Climate Change Minister and local member for that part of the river, Andrew McNamara will be able to shrug off the overwhelming vote of “no confidence” in his government’s plan.

The Prime Minister’s National Plan to tackle the water crisis (from the pm’s website)

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. As the impact of climate change intensifies, Australia faces increasingly acute long-term water shortages both in our cities and regional areas – with lower rainfall, rivers drying up and dam water levels falling. Tackling the water crisis is a major long-term priority for the Australian Government.

Tackling the water crisis and securing our future water supply requires all Australians to work together to use water more efficiently, cut water wastage, more effectively capture rain and stormwater, and adapt to the impact of climate change.

The Rudd Government will tackle the water crisis with a national plan to invest in water infrastructure, sustain our farming communities, revitalise our rivers and waterways, secure water supplies in our cities and towns and ensure that we become smarter and more efficient in our water usage.

The Government will invest in greater use of recycled water, desalination and stormwater through a $1 billion urban water infrastructure fund. The Government will also assist households to install water and energy efficient products, with rebates for rainwater tanks and solar hot water.

The Government will also be working cooperatively with State and Local Governments, farmers, industry and the community to secure Australia’s long-term water supply.

Pools in the Mary River, like these are home to the “living fossil”, the lungfish, and sandy beaches provide nesting banks for rare turtles. Image: Arkin Mackay

The Tell Kevin Campaign

The Prime Minister’s statement sounds like that of a government that has learnt lessons from the Murray and is keen to avoid similar catastrophic and costly mistakes, while seeking to ensure reliable sources of water that are less rainfall-dependent and less impacted by climate change.

This could have been written by any of us opposing the folly of this dam. The fact is though, that it was written by  the man who heads the team that’ll have the final say on whether the Mary flows or flounders.

We need to be writing to the PM, to his key Ministers and to federal Labor backbenchers to congratulate them on this far-sighted and visionary statement and to contrast it with the actions of the Qld government that not only insists on building the dam but that has done such a cursory examination of all alternatives.

The State Government, and its offshoot QWI, have acted as if there is no impediment to the dam being built; it has thumbed its nose at the possibility that EPBC approval may not be forthcoming, and has embarked on an aggressive process of property acquisition, meetings with contractors etc.

Recent rains have removed some of the urgency of the water “crisis” and allow a breathing space to ensure the wisest water decisions are the ones put into play.

We need a lot of letters to do this. Lots! The bar has been set so high with the number of EIS submissions that many heads turned. Now that they’ve turned we need them to start to think outside the pro-Traveston briefing they would have received from the State Government.

Your original letters are always best. Politicians use the rule of thumb that for every letter (or email) received, at least a hundred people share the same viewpoint. That’s why sixteen thousand submissions turned more than a few heads. Next come form letters which aren’t credited with the same 1 to 100 factor but they’re still worth doing.

Call on the Prime Minister and the Federal Government to apply its visionary water policy to override Queensland’s ill-advised decision to pursue this dam. How harshly would the new government be judged if it espoused such a noble and enlightened vision for water and waterways yet failed to deliver at its very first test.

For more information, visit the Save the Mary website or call at their No Dam Infocentre at Kandanga.

Into the National Spotlight

The Australian Conservation Foundation has placed the Traveston Dam and its threat to turtles and lungfish in pride of place on its website.

Featured heavily are the incredible algal-affroed Mary River Turtle photographs taken last year near Kenilworth by Sunshine Coast Photographer Chris Van Wyck.

ACF has established a letter generator to lobby the federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett against approving the dam. There’s more than a touch of irony in this as Peter Garrett is a past President of ACF and is well acquainted with the adverse impacts of dams.

As well as this, respected Wilderness Society campaigner Lyndon Schneiders in an on-line blog reflecting on politics and environment in Queensland, made reference to  “the ill-considered Traveston Dam on the Mary River” and “environmentally disastrous schemes such as the Traveston Dam”.

(Just recently TWS revealed government plans for a dam on Baffle Creek and while Water Minister Craig Wallace ” could neither confirm nor deny” the plan, Premier Anna Bligh was very quick to rule it out.)

Earlier this year, Radio National replayed ” A Whisper from the Past“, Nick Franklin’s investigation of the mysterious appeal of the lungfish, a descendant of the link with the first water creatures that were able to breathe air. The program has been aired on the BBC and previously also on Radio Eye.  More recently, ABC TV’s 7.30 Report was in the Mary Valley and Sandy Straits investigating the issue.

During the Senate Enquiry, it became all too obvious that the ripples of this proposal had spread far beyond the Mary Valley. If the government had been hoping that proceeding full steam ahead with land acquisitions and a program of relentless bombardment of “this dam is going ahead” propaganda, might have resulted in diminished opposition, it has plainly received a huge surprise.

The big question will be whether the government’s blustering “act like it’s already approved” style will be allowed to influence a decision that should have been made on purely environmental grounds under the EPBC Act. Federal Labor has an excellent and visionary Water Policy. It’s hard to see how it could bend to include something like Traveston Dam.

Fortunately an extension has been granted until January 14. In a recent half-page advertisement in The Gympie Times, Queensland Water Infrastructure admitted discrepancies in its much-touted EIS and announced the extended submission period.

As a way of continuing the fight against the undemocratic dam, you can now buy calendars and Christmas cards with a Mary River, anti-dam flavour.

Cards are $12, calendars range in size and price from $10 to $20. All proceeds go to fighting the State Government’s proposed mega-dam.

They are available around the Coast, including the SCEC office in Porters Lane, Nambour. Phone (07) 5441 5747 for details.

For other dam-based Christmas gifts visit [here].