Bundarrah Days

Friday night's flash flood has destroyed one home and caused damage to topsoil, farm sheds and stock water supplies at Licola, ABC rural radio reported today.

"Water from thunderstorms poured into the town from surrounding hillsides stripped bare by recent bushfires.

Farmer Rob Gilder says new fences he has been busy replacing since the recent bushfires have been destroyed.

While no stock losses have been recorded, Mr Gilder says stock water supplies are critical as the rivers and dams fill with mud.

"Everything has been killed in the fires, so all it takes is half an inch of rain and everything starts running, millions of tonnes of top soil have been destroyed up here," he said.

Mr Gilder's farm sheds have flooded three times in the past fortnight."

These are the sorts of effects Esplin, Williams and Bradstock neglected to tell you about. But then, if you visit this blog regularly you'd have already known what to expect.

TAKEN together the feral wildfires of 2003 and this summer represent the greatest environmental disaster in Australian history.

And that's not merely my opinion. It's an opinion shared by many of Australia's foremost environmental, forestry and climate scientists and hydrologists.

For example, I was talking about the fires today with a Meteorologist and asked what he thought of the scale of the disaster.

"I can't think of anything worse," he replied.

That comment is in stark contrast the happy scenario painted by Victorian Emergency Services Commissioner, Bruce Esplin, and his green scientist mates, Dick Williams and Ross Bradstock.

The three green stooges have been propounding the notion that these fires are a natural occurrence in Australia, that the environment has adapted to them and will recover quickly.

To be brutal that is a load of tripe and you'd be more likely to get a realistic appraisal of the consequences from Mo, Larry and Shemp.

It's well established now that feral wildfires create their own weather patterns and that the big thunderstorms and torrential downpours that follow them are a direct consequence of the burning. And yet torrential downpours are the last thing we want over vast areas of heavily burnt terrain where the topsoil is so unstable that even a little rain will wash it away.

The fires and the storms that follow represent a double catastrophe.

Fire caused storms are disastrous because water quality is seriously affected as a result of changed water balance through replacement of forest litter by layers of ash and subsequent run-off into streams.

Run-off carries charcoal, soil particles and clay as well as nutrients and dissolved organic waste. Ash and fine soil particles cause high concentrations of phosphorus increasing the risk of blue-green algal blooms as seen in the Dartmouth Dam after the 2003 disaster. And I haven't even mentioned erosion and the long-term destruction of habitat.

But there's even more to it. Regenerating forests absorb significantly more water than mature forest water leading to a significant decrease in run-off and water yield. Catchment values are heavily compromised.

Consider this. Victoria's north-east river basin, incorporating the Mitta, Kiewa, Ovens, and King rivers contributes 38 per cent of water to the Murray Darling system and the Goulburn - Broken River basin contributes another 11 per cent. That's 49 per cent.

Over the past four years the catchments for those basins have been obliterated by fire and water yield is going to be significantly lower for decades to come. What effect is that going to have on the Murray Darling system which is already at crisis point?

Get the picture? The fires of the past four years were not simply a natural occurrence we have to learn to live with. They were an unprecedented environmental disaster from which we might never fully recover.

The Bracks government is now planning a scheme to divert water around the Barmah Choke, a natural blockade on the Murray which feeds water into the river redgum forests. Such a diversion would starve the forests of water.

Only a few months ago this government was touting the necessity to protect those forests in a new national park but such is its desperation now it is prepared to sacrifice them.

This is where green inspired land management has led us yet we have a Commissioner For Emergency Services assuring us that all is hunky dory, that feral wildfire is natural and doesn't do much harm and the bush will recover quickly.

Do you think a man who suffers from such delusions should occupy such a vital public position?

The home of Licola CFA captain Ralph Barraclough has been destroyed by a massive mudslide that swept down on the small hamlet last night after heavy rainfall.

Ralph has been one of the foremost critics of the Brack's government's management of public land and a tremendous supporter of the Mountain Cattlemen.

Knowing Ralph this tragedy will make him all the more determined to bring the government to account.

As I mentioned in a previous post it was only last week that Victorians were advised by Emergency Services Commissioner, Bruce Esplin, to get used to wildfire. Esplin downplayed the disaster of this summer and talked up the capacity of the bush to regenerate.

Perhaps he'd like to visit Licola this week and deliver the same spiel to the locals, including Ralph Barraclough.

There's not going to be a lot of regeneration around Licola any time soon.

VICTORIA'S Commissioner for Emergency Services, Bruce Esplin, is a disaster waiting to happen and should be sacked.

His alliance with two of Australia's greenest scientists, Dick Williams and Ross Bradstock, demonstrates a clear lack of objectivity and an intention to align himself with a movement that supports the concept of wilderness and a subsequent regime of feral wildfire.

Far from supporting science that seeks to evaluate the damage caused by such fires to forests and catchments as well as changes to the albedo of the land that may lead to a decrease in rainfall, Esplin has told Victorians they need to "accept" wildfire as a fact of life and as a natural part of Victoria's ecology.

Eminent scientists and bushfire experts were appalled by an article co-written by Esplin, Williams and Bradstock which appeared in The Age last week.

In the article the three conspirators pointed to fire in mountain ash forests as evidence that wildfire was natural and necessary.

Mountain Ash regenerates through fire and forests need to be burnt about once a century.

However, to use fire in ash forests to justify the occurrence of the mega fires of recent years is no more than a deceptive ploy.

While there's no evidence that Aboriginals burnt mountain ash forests they regularly burnt the surrounding dry forests creating a mosaic of relatively clean forest floor. Their efforts were supported by lightning and fuel accumulation at levels seen in our forests today were unknown.

Therefore, the regenerative fires in mountain ash forests were unable to spread into mega blazes capable of destroying millions of hectares in the course of a single summer.

There are good reasons to believe that changes to the albedo of the land following the fires of 2003 contributed to the big dry. After the fires of this summer we can expect rainfall to remain lower than usual even with the end of the El Nino cycle.

THEY say milk sucks.

We say Greens suck! Bigtime!

The picture was taken at an animal liberation demonstration in Melbourne this week by a Weekly Times photographer. We invite your comments and your captions.

I've run this story once already but I think there's a good reason to run it again with an update. Water is a critical issue in Victoria right now.



ON February 13 we had a massive downpour over The Bundarrah..

After scarcely a drop of rain in the previous 12 months the heavens opened and just over two inches fell in less than two hours.

There were rivers of water flowing through our paddocks. Pictures show enormous flows of gushing water cutting access tracks and sweeping away vast amounts of denuded topsoil.

It was reminiscent of the massive storm of February, 2003, that followed the mega fires of that summer.

That storm loaded rivers with so much hail they resembled slow moving glaciers. Farmers were still seeing ice in their dams 10 days later.

But it’s not storms like this we’re worried about. It’s the big dry that has alarmed Victorians like never before. While Mebourne labours under level 2 restrictions, water, or more precisely, the lack of it is the big talking point

We've all witnessed how major bushfire events invariably end in a deluge which compounds the damage done by the fire itself. The result is erosion and sediment loading in streams accompanied by an increase in nutrients leading to outbreaks of algae and a serious loss of water quality.

Strange weather patterns indeed.

New international research suggests that burning has a positive effect on precipitation. A study by scientists from Colorado State University and Waterloo University, Ontario, reviewed by the internationally respected Journal of Geophysical Research, concludes that biomass burning in the Amazon rainforest has a positive effect on precipitation by increasing rainfall.

The study by C. Kummerow, T. Matsui, R.A. Pielke and J.C. Lin found that burning provides a strong input of aerosols into the atmosphere which effect precipitation, cloud properties and radiative balance.

The findings echo comments by Australian Of The Year, Tim Flannery, a few weeks ago that rainfall in northern Australia may be associated with air pollution from Asia causing a higher than usual number of aerosols in the atmosphere.

Australia is a continent that has adapted to fire over thousands of years but during the past century and a half the fire regime has changed dramatically from regular Aboriginal firestick burning to periodic wildfires. We now have long periods without much burning followed by massive conflagrations of the kind seen in 2003 and this year.

Could it be that the lack of regular burning has resulted in a loss of rain?

I put the question to Dr Pielke. He responded:

"Your idea is worth investigating, as there is a clear role of bushfires and forest fires in rainfall patterns. In between actual fires, the change in the albedo of the land surface itself appears to be important."

Tim Flannery told ABC radio recently that "we don't understand our weather systems in Australia particularly well because we haven't invested the money in climatology that we should have.

"But it seems reasonably well established now that the additional rainfall we're getting across northern Australia is not caused by global warming - it's caused by industrial particulate pollution in Asia, so that (is the) smog haze that they get across Asia,” he said.

"I can imagine a situation where we move farmers north, make a big investment there, but then as Asia starts cleaning up its air and its cities we may start losing that rainfall."

Australian meteorologists concede that there may be some connection between smoke, changes to albedo and rainfall but that it is probably small.

We heard on the bush telegraph this week that Parks Victoria was trying to find a way to muster our cattle for us and remove them from our runs.

Ignoring for a moment the impractical nature of such a proposal any person or body, Shire Councils included, would open themselves up to expensive litigation and possible charges if they attempted to touch our livestock.

Our right to graze this season has not been tested in a court, which is the appropriate place to settle the issue should the state government wish to contest it. Any attempt to shift the cattle without the sanction of the courts in a situation where there is a clear cut legal dispute would be an act of folly on the part of Parks Victoria. It would shatter what remains of its chequered reputation and put it at risk of having to pay a damages claim plus associated costs.

They should be more careful with taxpayers money.

Engineering a confrontation with mountain cattlemen on the high plains wouldn't be advisable.

Our solicitors have written to Parks Victoria to advise them that if they wish to continue the dispute a court is the appropriate place.

IT's been officially confirmed. Bundarrah Days is on the required reading list for the powers that be at Parks Victoria and DSE.

We hope they're finding it informative. Obviously we're not presenting a teaching manual here but this is the place, as I told my informant from Parks Vic this morning, from whence we issue our 'propaganda' - meaning our honest counter information to the lies and spin type propaganda distributed by the other side.

We're hopeful that even Bracksy and Thwacksy look in occasionally.......afternoon gents. How's the restoration work in the Alpine National Park coming along? We hope it's proceeding to plan - you want it looking good in time for the next scheduled conflagration.

You two blokes ought to book a seat for the next spy flight over The Bogongs looking for cattle. If you spot any ours are the ones branded TM with a slice off the left ear and a cup off the right.

While you're up and about look closely at the country and notice how the grazed areas are relatively unscathed by fire in comparison to the rest.

Make note of that and the flight won't have been a complete waste of time.

WILDFIRE may cause the eventual loss of the treeless regions of the Australian Alps.

One theory now being studied by a Melbourne University researcher suggests that fire may create the opportunity for upward migration of Eucalyptus pauciflora (snowgum) beyond the current treeline via the release of seed and the removal of alpine vegetation.

If true it makes the case for alpine grazing even more compelling. It will also make the greens even more desperate to discredit the well established fact that alpine grazing reduces blazing.

The study is being conducted by researcher, Libby Rumpff, and aims to investigate treeline dynamics after the 2003 fires in the Victorian Alps, by examining seedling emergence and mortality across the alpine treeline ecotone.

The Victorian National Parks Association is supposed to be about what its title suggests - national parks.

Is it not strange then that the VNPA should seek to interfere with the rights of private landowners and inflict its destructive version of management on to freehold land?

It's actually not strange at all when you consider that the VNPA is a green organisation which is ultimately opposed to private land ownership. It's not above using every tool at it disposal to undermine the right of Australians to own their own piece of the country. In common with National Socialism the VNPA will tolerate private ownership as long as it actually controls what happens on the land.

The VNPA's latest foray into other people's business involves native vegetation legislation. It wants native vegetation offsets on private land to be increased and for the cost of this to be borne by landowners. In brief, offsets are a requirement to replace one tree with more. If you have a problem tree affecting power lines or a fence, for example, and you want to remove it then under present regulations you have to plant 30 to offset the loss of the one you removed.

In the 2008 Land Health and Biodiversity White Paper the VNPA is proposing that current offsets be substantially increased. These new offsets are apparently to be set by science. However, no scientific evidence is presented in support of the proposal. The cost, of course, is to be borne by the landowners.

The VNPA wants you to be made to manage your land as if it is a national park, and at your expense.

Given the amount of money the government doesn't spend on national parks and the VNPA's passive management philosophies you might expect to get out of it cheap, but don't bank on it.

Our burning bush is destined to become our burning farmland.