Human Health Endangered by Australian Drought
Due to climate change; one of the now dried up lakes in Australia is gradually turning into Sulphuric Acid.
The Age is reporting that there are fears people living in towns around the lakes may suffer from acid dust, blowing off the bare lakes as rising acidity threatens to wipe out ecology in the lakes. The lake-bed soils turn into sulphuric acid when exposed to the air, and record low flows down the Murray are exposing the beds.
- » See also: Oceans’ Ability to Absorb Carbon & Protect Against Climate Change Weakening
- » Get EcoWorldly by RSS or sign up by email.
Some of the drought-stricken small streams that flow into the lakes already have recorded acidity levels higher than battery acid. When exposed to oxygen in the air through disturbance or drainage these soils produce sulfuric acid and can lead to the release of heavy metals and other contaminants.
Without effective management, acid sulfate soils can pose risks to the environment (including water quality) and have potential impacts on human and animal health and agriculture.
The decline of the Murray River’s protected Lower Lakes has reached a turning point. Officials say they are no longer able to artificially refill the dried lakes with freshwater.
A new strategy is needed to prevent the more vulnerable of the two lakes from turning acidic.
Water has been artificially added from the larger Lake Alexandrina into Albert in recent months in a bid to cover the lake bed.
But the South Australian Water Minister has warned upstream states that the pumping can not continue; saying that due to drought, water levels can no longer be maintained in both lakes … Therefore, pumping of water to Lake Albert will cease and a major bioremediation program is being implemented.
Bioremediation would involve planting selected crops in the lake bed and spreading fine limestone particles across it.
“This is the first known attempt to bioremediate acid sulphate soil-affected areas on a scale of this enormous size,” Ms Maywald said.
But it is far from the first drastic step Australia has taken to deal with the effects of climate change. In fact Australian architects seem to be ahead of the rest of us in creating adaptive design to cope in the hellish new world we are creating.
Image via Australian flikr user gaznlin
News via the The Age
I’m absolutely amazed by the length and magnitude of the Australian drought. What also surprises me is how we hear nothing in the USA’s main-stream media about it. Or if they are talking about it, it sure isn’t often enough.
Fact: With or without mankind, climate change is continuous and has always been continuous and will always be continuous.
Her are 4 questions to help us get a clearer picture.
1)Is it possible that the higher acid level is caused by the lower flow of water and at the bottom of the streams is a layer of acidic deposits?
2)What exactly is the pH level?
3)How many times in the last 500 years have the water reached the low level it is at now.
4)If this is not part of the normal ten year drought cycle that Australia normally faces, are there more users pulling water from the streams?
The problems described in the article are caused by the long term mismanagement of the river system and overallocation of its resources to irrigators and other river water users. The recent drought is exacerbating the problem of not enough flows in the river, so that the naturally freshwater lakes are being starved of water. Climate change may or not be causing the current drought, but severe droughts have always been part of the Australian climate and the river needs to be managed so that it can cope when such droughts occur.
News of the Australian drought may not be in the mainstream news, but anyone relying on mainstream ‘news’ can’t think they are adequately informed on any issue, can they?
There was a rather good article about the Australian drought recently in National Geographic.
Since scientists are in 100% agreement on global warming, apparently the only place one will find ‘the debate’ is in the spinning of the mainstream news.
As in all of life, we need to identify problems and figure out a way to address them. The time for sitting around and hoping things will improve is over in Australia. As Australians turn their attention to taking measures to deal with the climate situation there, the rest of us would do well to watch and learn, and follow suit.
I agree with Pilo. It is all about water management, with irrigation still pulling too much water upstream, to the detriment of the lower lakes. But the anomoly is that Lake Eyre has filled for the 2nd? time in living memory, and the north of the country is experiencing record floods. This is nothing new. There is so much mis-information about so-called climate change.
I agree with Robin. Especially as Australia is preceding most of us in the Southwest US into our own future climate (per the regional predictions) of ever increasing heat and drought, we would do well to see how others are coping with this particular horror.
Australia has had worsening drought for the last 12 years.