More calls for Valley water

NEW moves are being made to have water from the Clarence diverted to the west.

A new website, called Political Guts, says once water is over the range, managed carefully, it can be set up to siphon through the piping, down the other side.

Author Ray Jamieson says this siphon effect, supplemented with the initial pumping, may in some situations almost eliminate external power requirements to transfer water across the range.

“The natural flow tendencies can be harnessed to take the water from those points to the river systems where their flushing and flooding action is desperately needed,” he said.

“In the 1950s, the Snowy Mountain Scheme did a similar thing with the Snowy River and the hydro-electricity scheme.

“The technology we have to work with is now six decades more advanced than the best we had in those days, and the task we would ask of it, diverting those certain rivers across the Great Dividing Range, would be a much simpler feat than the Snowy Scheme was.”

Mr Jamieson said, however, that people had learnt from the Snowy Mountain Scheme that it was inappropriate to run rivers dry.

“There has to be a balance in there, where enough water is available to satisfy both needs, and solve the problems that now exist,” he said.

“A small proportion of these massive though short rivers diverted inland would ensure inland water, local (green) electrical power supplies and a degree of flood mitigation.

“Creating specific plans for a specific amount of water rather than the carte blanche theft as occurred with the Snowy River would have to be a saleable concept to the local communities, and ensure drought relief and disaster prevention inland as well.”

The Federal Government has ruled out diverting the Clarence River.