Gannawarra Shire Heritage Study Stage One Volume One Thematic ...

out of excess water from State works during the height of the flood. Benjeroop residents signed a petition
asking the Minister of Water Supply to ‘let the flood water of the Loddon River take its natural course through
the Lakes’. Since cutting the Lakes off, they wrote, the river had to take all the flood waters causing hardship
to those who lived on its lower reaches. 95
Other unsettling aspects were uncovered by the 1916 Royal Commission on Closer Settlement
established after continuing criticism by settlers about purchases of land in electorates of government
ministers. The suitability of land chosen for irrigation estates was brought into focus when evidence was given
that much of the land selected for irrigated lucerne blocks was low-lying ‘worn-out’ wheat land. At Cohuna
1,200 acres in the district of Mead became so water logged and affected by salinity that the land was unfit for
any kind of production. A report in 1912 described ‘the rise in the soil water-level’ caused by ‘excessive use
of water by irrigators’. So near to the surface was it that with evaporation an ‘accumulation of alkali’ was
evident. 96 An investigation by the Department of Agriculture in 1913 found that chlorides and sulphates had
accumulated within two years from the start of irrigation in the Cohuna area in 1910. When a deputation,
including Mead and the premier William Watt, arrived in Cohuna in 1913 to inspect affected land, local
resident Angus Martin demanded that action for drainage of the area be taken immediately. 97 Free water was
allocated to wash out the salt, and drainage schemes such as those undertaken on ‘alkali land’ in California
were recommended. 98 Relief for settlers whose allotments were affected by salt in the Cohuna district was
introduced in May 1914. ‘Conditions of Alkali Relief’ allowed settlers to relinquish affected blocks with
compensation made for capital improvements. Payment of instalments was suspended until the land had
improved, and drainage outlets had been provided to orchards of four or more acres. 99 By 1914, channels
drained surface water into Leitchs Creek and Barr Creek at Cohuna, which by the following year had had ‘a
marked effect in lowering the level of the water table’. 100
Another round of major projects was undertaken by the SRWSC to support soldier and migrant
settlement. The River Murray Commission, appointed in August 1915, oversaw the construction of the
Torrumbarry Weir and Lock on the River Murray downstream from the Gunbower Creek off-take at
Torrumbarry in the period 1919-1923. The opening of the Torrumbarry Weir-Lock in 1923 boosted irrigation
supplies to the districts of Koondrook, Gannawarra, Cohuna and Kerang. The weir, ‘the key to the North
95
"1508 Letters and Memos." PROV, VA 723 State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, VPRS 3844/P0 General
Correspondence Files, unit 108.
96
"State Rivers and Water Supply Commission Eighth Annual Report 1912-13". Victorian Parliamentary Papers, vol. 3,
no. 46, 1913, 19-20.
97
Angus Martin, "My Life Story." Held by Kerang Branch Gannawarra Library Service, 1955, 59.
98
As the sea retreated from the Murray Basin in Tertiary times, seawater was trapped in the underground sands and
limestones. Since that time, high levels of salinity have been taken into rivers and groundwater storages by natural
drainage, especially in the lower reaches of the rivers. The addition of water by flood irrigation to the natural
groundwater mobilised salts. Drainage schemes aim to decrease salinity and waterlogging in low lying areas through the
removal of irrigation water after use via channels or underground tile drains to evaporation basins and the River Murray.
99
Murphy, "Where There's Mud There's Money: Irrigated Closer Settlement on Cohuna Estate First Subdivision 1909".
100
"State Rivers and Water Supply Commission Eleventh Annual Report 1915-16". Victorian Parliamentary Papers, vol.
2, no. 34, 1916, 13.
Gannawarra Shire Heritage Study Stage One Volume One Thematic Environmental History
Robyn Ballinger (History in the Making) December 2008
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