Tasmania has the weight of the country on its shoulders when it comes to water management, power generation and agricultural production.
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Political leaders of all persuasions have been out in force, spruiking the state's "liquid gold" and frequently pointing to our vast freshwater stocks as proof that we can support the exponential growth of new irrigation.
In addition, Tasmania is facing the brunt of leading Victoria's transition away from a coal-fired power industry to a more renewable one - when they essentially plug into the state's hydropower with Marinus Link.
Agriculture, which has become a cornerstone of Tasmania's economy, is growing with an ambitious vision to grow farmgate value to one billion by 2050. We are also becoming home to a hydrogen hub at Bell Bay. What do all of these things have in common? They all require freshwater.
If you ask the country's political leaders, they will say Tasmania has abundant freshwater stocks - but is that statement accurate?
Tasmania has 12 per cent of Australia's freshwater stocks, and the vast majority of it stems from pockets on the West Coast.
The West Coast has been dubbed the wettest part of Tasmania, but recent weather data has shown that it has been experiencing a declining rainfall trend for the past 10 years.
That alone should ring alarm bells in many people's heads, but what's worse is that Tasmania's rivers have already experienced degradation due to intensive industrial practices in the agriculture, aquaculture, mining and renewable energy sectors. Another fact is that the state government department did not release a recent report on river quality until the Tasmanian Greens sought a Right to Information request.
It led to the resignation of water ecologist Chris Bobbi and has led to many independent scientists and academics sounding the alarm over the management of Tasmania's most precious resource. That report, which is now public, showed that nearly half of Tasmania's rivers had experienced degradation to the ecosystem due to industrialisation. Of course, there is the age-old question of environment versus economy - which should have precedence? Well, the answer is both. There will be no hydro, hydrogen, drinking water, or water for irrigation or aquaculture without the rivers. And without the water, those industries would also suffer significant collapse, which would have a detrimental impact on Tasmania's economy and smaller communities.
The fact of the matter is that if Tasmania continues to go down this path, we might be facing full degradation of our rivers and will lose a resource without which we can't live.
It also means that we could be facing a future where rivers are unswimmable, that there's no fish and toxic algal blooms become the norm for waterways. That's why The Examiner believes there still should be an inquiry into water management in the state to align all the work under one place - nothing should be out of scope.
Because if we don't do this, then we could be facing ecosystem collapse, and facing infighting for the same resource on the scale of the Murray-Darling basin. We have already started to go down this path, but it's not too late to change course, while we still can.
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