About the Program

Keeping salt out of the Murray

At strategic points along the River Murray, the Commonwealth Government and the governments New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have jointly funded construction of 6 major salt interception schemes. State authorities maintain the facilities and River Murray Water coordinates their operations. (The States run another seven of their own schemes in cooperation with the River Murray Water). The jointly funded schemes pump out about 15,000 megalitres of salt water a year (or about 15,000 olympic sized swimming pools) from watertables near the near river. This results in about 400,000 tonnes (or the equivalent of 40,000 full garbage trucks) of salt being kept out of the River Murray each year.

Working to a Strategy

The joint schemes, which are part of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission's Salinity and Drainage Strategy, have resulted in a reduction of salinity at Morgan 80 EC units. (An EC unit is a measure of salinity concentration). In 2001, a new Basin Salinity Management Strategy was put in place to build on the success of the salinity and drainage strategy by:

• guiding communities and Governments to cooperatively control salinity and protect key natural resource values within their catchments;
• establishing targets for the river salinity of each tributary valley and the Murray-Darling system itself;
• providing a stable and accountable framework that, over time, will generate confidence in how we are tracking our joint efforts to manage salinity; and
• guiding the redesign of farming systems.