From time immemorial, the river that runs from the hills of the east Kimberley to the mouth of King Sound in Western Australia has been the setting of stories and events that have shaped the country.
Its banks have borne witness to gatherings, ceremonies, massacres and, more recently, home-destroying floods.
Now it is the subject of WA government policy discussions and bumper stickers that read, “Don’t let the Martuwarra Fitzroy River become the next Murray-Darling”.
Dodging the next Murray-Darling scenario?
As Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek claws water allocations back to the environment in eastern Australia, opinions are divided on the future of water licensing in the Fitzroy catchment.
The river and its tributaries have — aside from a failed attempt at irrigation by Liveringa station in the 1960s — remain free from any significant surface water extractions.
That is something the likes of station owners Gina Rinehart and Malcom Harris would like to see changed.
Both parties have plans to diversify their pastoral stations’ income through irrigated cropping, with Ms Rinehart wanting 325 gigalitres and Mr Harris 50 gigalitres.
“With cattle prices going the way they are, we need to look at enhancing our existing industry and doing new things as well,” Philip Hams, the cropping manager of the Harris-owned Gogo Station, said.
“I think we can all come to an agreement, I think with new technology we can manage and control [water allocations] and I can’t see anything getting out of hand.”
Mr Hams is referencing accounts of water theft, over-allocated water licences and fish kills that hang over irrigators along the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
But he believes those factors can be avoided in WA’s north.
“[In the basin plan] you’ve got five different governing bodies and in excess of a million square kilometres, whereas the Fitzroy catchment is 93,000 square kilometres and one jurisdiction. I can’t see why you can’t make it work,” he said.
Potential for thousands of jobs
There’s plenty at stake, with a CSIRO report stating that capturing 1,700 gigalitres of surface water could create $70 million in gross domestic production.
“[Furthermore, it] would create $1.12 billion of annually recurring regional economic activity and generate about 4,690 full-time equivalent jobs,” the report reads.
But the WA government isn’t confident water extraction from the Fitzroy catchment can be done safely, recently announcing its policy position that no additional surface water will be licensed.
What the research says
The 2018 CSIRO report found it physically possible to pump or divert 1,700 gigalitres of water each year from the Fitzroy catchment in 85 per cent of years.
For context, the surface water recovery target for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is 2,075 gigalitres per year.
The key difference between the two river systems is the Murray-Darling flows year-round, while nearly 80 per cent of the Fitzroy’s streamflow runs out to sea in a matter of days during the wet season.
The ramifications of pumping 1,700 gigalitres of surface water from the Fitzroy catchment as rivers run would only “slightly reduce floodplain inundation” in low flood years, and have a “negligible effect” during moderate and large flood events, the report found.
“At a high commence-to-pump threshold (ie 1,800mL/day), the impacts of water harvesting on flow habitats of all species assessed, including barramundi and freshwater sawfish, was minor,” the report reads.
Despite this reassuring CSIRO research, WA Water Minister Simone McGurk said the state government wouldn’t allow anything of the kind.
“The science tells us that we don’t take surface water without some implications further down the track,” she said.
“Important wetlands and the recharging of aquifers all rely on those heavy floods, which we know are variable, particularly with climate change.
“That’s been a consideration in our decision.”
Indigenous water rights, or lack thereof
To traditional owners, the debate encompasses more than just environmental ramifications.
“It’s all very well to say you can do things [with this water], but you’ve got to think of the impacts on our law and culture on the river,” Bunuba man Joe Ross said.
“My personal view is that there should be a water reserve put aside for Aboriginal custodians of the Fitzroy River.”
Water was initially set to be included under native title rights, but was dropped as a concession to create the Native Title Act in 1993, Mr Ross explained.
It’s a conversation he would like to see restarted.
“It’s going to take a monumental shift in philosophy of governments to be able to say that Aboriginal people can have vested rights in water,” Mr Ross said.
Conversation now looking underground
Another of the WA government’s policy positions is to “restrict” access to Alluvial and Devonian Reef aquifers when it comes to the use of groundwater, which is still available to license.
For Gooniyandi man Claude Carter, whose home overlooks the ancient Devonian Reef, the idea of tapping into this water is distressing.
“I always say that the creator of this country, the Dreamtime Snake, he gave us something up here, he gave us land, he gave us trees, he gave us fruit, he gave us rivers,” he said.
“There’s a lot of water down the bottom, he didn’t give us that. What’s underneath, that’s his home.”
Mr Carter said there were warnings in stories passed down for generations about that underground river.
“If you touch that, you’re going to wake something up and you’re not going to be able to control it.”
Groundwater ‘not enough’
Back at Gogo station, the state government’s prospect of up to 108 gigalitres of groundwater available for use is nothing compared to the opportunities Mr Hams sees in surface water.
“What a strong irrigation industry will do is create other job opportunities,” he said.
“They don’t all have to be tractor drivers but you get that flow-on effect in town with tyre providers and all the other service providers.
“One thing this area is desperately short of is meaningful jobs. So I’m not going to give up.”
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