Water
Goulburn logging threatens Victorian water security
Date: 20-May-2009
Ending logging in the Goulburn’s wet mountain forests would deliver an additional 3,800 gigalitres – around six times Melbourne’s annual water use – into the Goulburn River this century, according to a new report by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
This water is estimated to have an economic value of around $1.68 billion.
Logging in Melbournes Largest Water Supply - The Thomson
Date: 8 - November - 2006
Ending logging in the Thomson Catchment, Melbournes largest water supply, could produce an extra 20 billion litres of water annually for Melbourne (the same as a Maroondah Dam). The financial cost to reconnect the Tarago Dam has cost tax payers $80 million. The Tarago can provide up to 16 billion litres annually.
This report is a review of current government science.
MYTH: Vicforests claim that Melbourne has the best water and most drinkable in Australia and has logging occurring ‘extensively in the catchments’. Yet on the following page the Vicforests claim it only logs a small percentage of the catchments.
TRUTH: Rainfall varies across catchments with some areas receiving very little rain and higher altitude areas receiving more. Vicforests log the areas of highest rainfall so impact greatly on water run off. Its not how much you log its where and what you log. The Ash species consume large amounts of water to regrow to epic heights of 150 metres. NO studies accurately asses current rates of logging on water quality (SKM2006)
MYTH: Reducing Victorian logging increases Australia’s importation of tropical Hardwoods. Vicforests report states ‘Further cuts to local production will encourage more tropical deforestation’ .
TRUTH: Australia exports $2 billion dollars worth of wood annually and imports $4 billion dollars worth of wood, most of which is plantation pine from New Zealand.
Rainfall overlay in the Thomson Catchment. The black spots are logged forest areas
Armstrong Creek - Yarra Tributary
McMahons Creek - Yarra Tributary
Starvation Creek - Yarra Tributary
The Thomson Catchment
Melbournes logged catchments providing our drinking water
In the Forests,Water & Wood brochure Vicforests claim:
Some 65,000 ha (or around 40 per cent) of Melbourne’s catchments are comprised of regrowth from the 1939 ‘Black Friday’ bushfires. Virtually the whole of Melbourne’s catchments where timber harvesting is permitted is fire regrowth.
TRUTH: Keeping the fire ‘regrowth’ logged will keep the catchment forests in a young thirsty growth state. Allowing the trees to mature and age will release water back into our water table.
VicForests’ log Victoria’s forested water catchments which reduces the amount of water that flows into our rivers and dams.
Logging takes place in the areas of highest rainfall in our catchments. After the forests are cut down, the young new trees then drink up to 50% of water that would have otherwise entered our dams.
Old forests grow over millennia and gently capture rain, percolate it through the soils, purify it and release it into streams and ground water. According to a World Bank study on water published in 2003, this complex system provides Melbourne with some of the best water on earth.
The impact from logging on water quality from erosion and pollution has yet to be adequately assessed.
Based on scientific studies logging wastes up to 1,000 litres every second.
Protecting Victoria’s forests will increase our precious water supplies long into the future.
Victoria’s plantation forests can produce our wood. So that Victoria’s old growth forests can produce our water.
