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Australia

Why carp, one of Australia’s worst introduced pests, could be a great budget-friendly fish

A close up image of a big carp fish with its mouth opened.

Just a fraction of the 5,000 seafood species make it from the ocean to dinner plates, but experts say broadening our nets could help seafood sustainability while keeping the weekly food budget in check.

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Is it time for our fish-and-chip menus to change?

New South Wales Department of Primary Industries senior fisheries manager Luke Pearce told ABC Radio Melbourne that while carp had a bad name, the fish could find some love in the kitchen.

Carp are one of the worst introduced pests in Australia and have negative impacts on water quality and biodiversity, according to the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

“They have such a negative impact on our environment and they’ve just caused such huge problems in our river system,” Mr Pearce said.

A swap of carp in brown water swimming.
The more carp taken out of waterways the better, according to senior fisheries manager Luke Pearce.(Rural ABC)

There was also a notion that carp made bad eating and that put people off.

“I was of the opinion for a long time but I’ve convinced a lot of people over my time to taste them,” Mr Pearce said.

“But there are a few things you’ve got to do first.”

Plating up a pest

While Mr Pearce said carp could survive in some pretty unappealing environments, like in the water at a sewerage treatment plant, a good rule of thumb was that if you’d eat any other fish from the water source, carp would also be safe to consume .

Dead carp falling out of a crate
A national control plan is being developed for carp.(Landline: Kerry Staight)

“So if you’d eat a trout or a golden perch or a cod from the same waterway, then a carp would be fine to eat from it,” he said.

Mr Pearce said tackling the fish’s flavor was also something to keep in mind.

When under stress, carp produces histamines which create an odor and its distinctive muddy taste.

“The quicker you can get that fish on ice, the less likely the muddy taste will be present,” he said.

Slippery mucus on the fish’s body also tarnished carp’s eating reputation, but Mr Pearce said the solution was skinning.

“Once you skin your fish, that mucus is gone and you’ve got a really nice clean, fresh and tasty fillet of fish that you can do a bunch of things with,” he said.

cook vs cull

A $15.2 million carp control plan is being developed with the aim of slashing numbers of the invasive species using a herpes virus, but Mr Pearce said there was still a push for people to see the fish as a protein alternative.

“Carp are being turned into fertilizer … but they’re consuming all these resources that take away from our native fish and the more we can take out the better,” he said.

How about eels?

Co-founder of the Lake Bolac Eel Festival Neil Murray lives on Jupagalk Country in south-west Victoria and has been participating in an annual eel harvest for almost two decades.

Mr Murry said First Nations people would gather in the late summer at Lake Bolac as the eels began their annual migration to the sea to spawn, known as kuyang season.

“The eel was the most-favored fish by First Nations people,” he said.

“It’s highly nutritious, very abundant and it’s easy to catch.”

Raw eel on a plat
Eel is still largely exported overseas.(ABC Radio Sydney: Amanda Hoh)

Mr Murry said while the industry was still fairly lucrative, most of the catch was frozen for export.

“I just prefer it freshly grilled over coals and I usually cut it into sections about four-inches long and let the oil drip out of it,” he said.

“I think initially a lot of people were put off it because it’s a slimy, squirmy thing that looks like a snake, but when you’re brought up in the area like I was, it was a part of our diet.”

different not more

University of Melbourne marine and fisheries ecologist John Ford said of the species that fishers caught, only a few made it to the retail giants.

“The fish you see on the supermarket shelves, the ones that are already in demand, are only going to get more expensive,” Dr Ford said.

“The ocean can’t give us any more fish than it is right now and as the population grows, the demand grows.”

Dr Ford said that meant looking at eating lower-quality products, like fish meal, a product made from wild-caught fish and by-products.

But he said there was one major reason lesser-known products weren’t at the shops.

“We don’t know how to cook them, and that’s the real challenge,” he said.

Big pieces of Norwegian salmon are stacked on top of each other in a fridge at a supermarket.
It would need to be profitable for supermarkets to stock alternative seafood.(Flickr: BakiOguz)

Consumers would have to feel comfortable cooking an unfamiliar product.

“It requires someone to be bold and put these products on the shelf and to educate people,” Dr Ford said.

He said while Australia’s supermarket duopoly would make a shake-up a challenge, future collaboration with peak fishing bodies could shore up seafood’s future.

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Categories
Australia

Australia’s largest land-based coral farm records ‘amazing’ spawning event

Australia's largest land-based coral farm records 'amazing' spawning event

Baby corals have been successfully spawned and grown for the first time by an Australian farm in a process that could one day help restore the Great Barrier Reef.

Monsoon Aquatics operates Australia’s largest dedicated land-based coral farm at Burnett Heads near Bundaberg, where the company recorded the first spawning event of Homophyllia australis last November.

Almost 10 months later, the company has been able to grow baby corals in captivity, hailing the spawning event with success.

“That’s a species of coral which is basically only found from around Pancake Creek up to the Whitsunday area and Swains Reef, and so it’s unique to this southern Great Barrier Reef area,” company director Daniel Kimberley said.

coral give 2
Daniel Kimberley operates Australia’s largest land-based coral farm.(ABC Wide Bay: Johanna Marie)

Craig Humphrey from the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s national sea simulator said it was a “significant achievement”.

“If there’s a decline in the reef… these things could be bred in captivity to supply the market,” he said.

From the reef to the aquarium

Monsoon Aquatics is one of 39 active license holders in Queensland’s commercial coral fishery who can target a broad range of specialty corals to be sold to aquariums and hobbyists.

According to Queensland Fisheries, there was 100 tonnes of coral harvested from the Great Barrier Reef in the 2020-21 financial year.

Moonsoon Aquatics Coral 1
A sample of coral at the Monsoon Aquatics facility in Bundaberg.(Supplied: Monsoon Aquatics)

“If you were to look at the reef as a whole, it’s a fraction of what’s out there,” Mr Kimberley said.

“The worldwide aquarium industry is worth over $US4 billion.

“A lot of that product is coming out of Indonesia and Vietnam and Tonga and Fiji and places like that, so there’s still huge scope for Australia to grow in that space.”

Mr Kimberley said successfully spawning and growing corals in captivity would mean a reduced reliance on harvesting wild corals.

“It’s about producing corals for our current ornamental market beyond what we can take from the wild, what we can harvest under quota,” he said.

coral hands
The worldwide aquarium industry is worth billions of dollars.(ABC Wide Bay: Johanna Marie)

The life of coral

Footage shows the coral releasing eggs which are then fertilized and develop into larvae before eventually growing into baby coral.

“They start morphing into essentially what looks like a little slug, and that little slug will float around in the water column until it senses the particular substrate and habitat where it wants to settle,” Mr Kimberley said.

“It will then go to the bottom, stick onto the rocks, and then start to form its first mouth and tentacles and become a coral.”

coral eggs
The eggs develop into larvae, and eventually grow into coral.(Supplied: Monsoon Aquatics)

Coral spawns around the same time every year in both the wild and in captivity.

“It’s the change in water temperature, day length and the phase of the Moon, so in general it occurs just after a full moon in November and December,” Mr Humphrey said.

reef restoration

A report by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) found there has been a rapid recovery of coral on the Great Barrier Reef from past storms and bleaching events, but it has come at the expense of a diversity of coral species.

Mr Kimberley believes commercial enterprise should be leading reef restoration projects, and spawning coral in captivity was the way of the future.

An underwater shot showing a scientist wearing a snorkel, holding a tow bar, and floating over a large expanse of corals.
A scientist is led around the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, as part of a monitoring project.(Supplied: Australian Institute of Marine Science)

“The really exciting thing for us is that it’s the first steps towards habitat restoration. And one day being a part of the solution to replant the Great Barrier Reef,” Mr Kimberley said.

“I think to drive these changes in these restorations… it needs to be commercially viable and driven by industry.”

Mr Humphrey says researchers are exploring it as a possibility.

“If you do culture them in a lab or in aquaculture setting, how do you get them out to the reef? And how do you retain them within the reef,” he said.

“There’s a whole range of research being undertaken in all those areas.”

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Categories
Business

Lettuce prices to fall as production lifts in flood-hit growing regions

Close up shot of a head of cos lettuce

After months of paying $10 for lettuce, shoppers can expect some relief with Queensland growers getting back on track, three months after they were devastated by flooding.

Prices for the salad staple skyrocketed after flooding in May wiped out millions of dollars worth of vegetables in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane.

Mulgowie Yowie Salads director Shannon Moss said he had only started full production about two weeks ago.

“We’ve had nice weather where a lot of growers have got stock coming on,” Mr Moss said.

“I was going through the photos [of the flooding] and I’m thinking how it’s hard to look at it, look at the devastation that was here.

“It is nice to see the paddocks recover and the farm get back into some sort of normality.”

Mr Moss said he was now producing about 30,000 cos lettuces a week for markets in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Rows of lettuce wiped out from floods with the scenery of the lockyer valley in the background
Shannon Moss lost his entire lettuce crop in May when floods ripped through the Lockyer Valley. (Supplied: Shannon Moss)

He said prices had remained high for so long because the season had had to start from scratch.

“You have to remember a seedling in a nursery takes about four to six weeks to grow, then it’s another eight weeks in the ground to grow lettuce.

“So you’re looking at three to four months to grow any kind of lettuce.”

Man in fluro orange shirt stands in front of rows of lettuce.
After the trauma of floods, Mr Moss is happy to get back to normal production. (Rural ABC: Lucy Cooper)

Further price drop expected

Toowoomba-based greengrocer Bevan Betros said prices had halved in recent weeks.

“I think we can afford to eat iceberg lettuce again … they are a good size, they’ve got a bit of weight in them — they’re very good value again,” Mr Betros said.

He said prices would remain stable over the coming weeks.

“I don’t think they’ll get much cheaper just for the next week or two.

“There may be some gaps in the plantings due to the floods and what people were able to do when they could get on and off their property.”

Man stars at camera with shopping shelves behind him
Greengrocer Bevan Betros expects iceberg lettuce to drop to about $2 by September. (ABC News: David Chen)

Mr Betros said he expected prices would continue to fall heading into October.

“They’ll get back down as the warm weather comes on, as we get into spring.

“We should be getting down under $2 again, hopefully in September.”

Iceberg lettuce on shelf in supermarket with a price of $6.20
Iceberg lettuce has fluctuated from $1.50 a head to $12 and is now $6 a head. (ABC News: David Chen)

But don’t get used to it

Despite lettuce production returning to normal, shoppers are being warned not to get used to low prices.

Director of Coastal Hydroponics on the Gold Coast and Growcom chairwoman Belinda Frentz said a price reduction would likely be short term.

“We’ll start seeing the prices of most leafies coming back to what we would expect to be a normal sort of price,” Ms Frentz said.

Woman stands with arms crossed and lettuce growing behind her
Growcom chair Belinda Frentz says production is almost at full capacity. (ABC News: Steve Keen)

“Obviously we’ve got input cost pressures that are having a significant impact on businesses and recouping costs and seeing prices sort of not leveling out — there’s going to be some increases.”

Ms Frentz said farmers were still dealing with high labour, fuel and fertilizer costs.

“Growers are being hit in every pocket that they’ve got.”

Is there a right price?

While prices have dropped, growers want them to remain at levels where their businesses can survive.

“If we get down to $1.50 for retail lettuce that’s not going to be sustainable for too long,” Mr Moss said.

“You know, fuel levies are up 20 to 25 per cent, fertilizer prices are up another 25 to 30 per cent and diesel is up another 30 to 40 per cent, so our product needs to be up around 30 to 40 per cent,” he said.

Hand holds a plastic packaged cos lettuce
Lockyer Valley growers supply the key markets of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.(Rural ABC: Lucy Cooper)

Ms Frentz hoped the severity of the losses endured by farmers during the floods would demonstrate to consumers how exposed the industry was.

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Categories
Australia

More women driving tractors and trains for the sugarcane harvest in far north Queensland

A young woman with short blonde hair, a tank top and a black hat leans on the wheel of a power-haul vehicle.

Maneuvering a 10-tonne tractor over rough terrain and tipping sugar cane into a train carriage may require skill and concentration, but Jasmine Cartwright and Elsa Tickler have taken it like ducks to water.

It therefore came as a bit of a surprise when the pair discovered they were the first women to apply for the job on Matt Watson’s Mossman farm in far north Queensland.

“Definitely, women can do the job just as well as men,” 28-year-old Ms Cartwright said.

“I’ve never driven heavy vehicles before starting this job and, prior to this year, never really imagined that I would go down this path for work, but I’m really happy I did.

“It takes a bit of time to practice and get used to the trucks because they’re just unique in the way that they run, but women should absolutely give it a go.”

Ms Tickler, 27, is from south-east Queensland and previously worked as a cook on a prawn trawler.

“I think learning to drive heavy machinery is a great skill set … and it’s something that will be so valuable in my life and future,” she said.

“I think I’ll be back for the next season.”

A young woman with short blond hair, a singlet and a black hat sits in the cab of a power-haul vehicle.
Elsa Tickler was surprised to learn she was one of the first female Powerhaul drivers in Mossman.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

With no regrets

Labor shortages have been a growing challenge for the agriculture industry, with young women among those most likely to leave rural areas.

Ms Cartwright, who is also from the state’s south-east, says she has no regrets about moving to Mossman this year to work.

“The environment we’re working in, the scenery, it’s so beautiful driving around different farms in Mossman and the Daintree,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s like a wildlife documentary happening in front of you: we see snakes and wild pigs and so many bandicoots and dingoes and kangaroos—crocodiles even.

“It’s really challenging because the roads are obviously a bit off-road and you’re driving a really heavy vehicle, so it’s just a new challenge, but it’s really fun.”

Driving the locomotive

After the cane is successfully tipped into train carriages, another young woman has the job of delivering it safely to the Mossman sugar mill.

Sophie Wright, 22, gave up her job as a makeup artist in Adelaide and moved to Mossman four years ago after falling in love with the region.

A young woman with a blonde ponytail, high-vis work top and boots, leans on a cane train engine.
Sophie Wright is completing her locomotive driver’s license.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

She has been working as a train driver’s assistant for Far Northern Milling and is currently training to be a locomotive driver.

Ms Wright said it had been a big career change but one she was glad she made.

“I think it’s something I love doing a whole lot more. You know, I feel like it’s meaningful,” she said.

“I honestly think the scenery is amazing. You see really nice parts of Mossman. We have to cross a few bridges on the way and there are stunning creeks.”

Ms Wright drives the cane train under supervision and helps with maintenance while logging the 200 hours required to get her ticket, which she hopes to achieve by next year.

“When we do have maintenance days, or when there’s days that the mill needs to stop for whatever reason, we help out John, who is our mechanic here, greasing the locos,” she said.

“We have to change the grease bombs. We have to make sure all the oils and the final drives and everything’s topped up and working well.

“We also have maintenance days where we have to adjust the brakes and put new ones in.”

A green and yellow loco pulling full bins of cut sugar cane.
A locomotive engine driver’s job is to collect filled carriages and take them to the mill.(Rural ABC: Melanie Groves)

On the right track

Ms Wright says another benefit to driving cane trains is that the job is seasonal, which means she has six or seven months off each year that allow her to travel.

Last year, she even worked on a snorkel tour boat on the Great Barrier Reef.

Ms Wright said it was no surprise that the job was attracting a growing number of women.

“When I started, I was one of the only females working on the trains,” she said.

“Now as the years have gone past, there are more and more women who are actually coming in and learning to drive, and learning to be driver assistants as well, which is really good to see.

“I’ve actually heard a few people say women are a little bit more careful with the trains. They pay attention and they’re very careful.”

A young woman with a blonde ponytail and high-vis workwear sits in the cab of a cane train.
Sophie Wright gave up her job as a makeup artist in Adelaide to work on cane trains in Mossman.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

Ms Wright said young women should not limit their imaginations when it came to career choices.

“You can train to be anything that you want to be, if you put your mind to it,” she said.

“[The cane industry] is a really open industry.

“I think if you want to do it, then just go for it. I’ve learned so much this year and anyone can do it really.”

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Categories
Australia

Southern Queensland weather forecast for another wet spring

A lighting strike near grain silos

Authorities and farmers in Queensland are preparing for a wet spring after a “nightmare” winter of rain and flooding.

The Bureau of Metrology this week declared the Indian Ocean Dipole was “negative”, which typically meant wetter than normal weather over winter and spring for much of southern and eastern Australia.

The bureau said there was also a chance La Nina could re-form for a third time during spring.

Condamine farmer Jake Hamilton said he was slightly concerned about the forecast after an “absolute nightmare” winter of muddy paddocks at his southern Queensland property.

Mr Hamilton said he had received more than 150 millimeters of rain in May, which severely delayed the planting of crops.

“We’ve had a 75-tonne snatch strap tied to the front of our planting tractor for the last three months, and it has certainly got a lot of use,” Mr Hamilton said.

“We’ve been bogging machines left, right and centre, whether it’s tractors or sprayers, just trying to get through the mud.

“I don’t think anyone in our area is going to want to go through a harvest that was as wet as the planting that we just had.”

A tractor in a muddy paddock
Tractors have been getting bogged down in wet paddocks. (Supplied: Jake Hamilton)

Mr Hamilton said the season overall had been as good as farmers could have hoped for.

But he said if the forecast for a wet spring did eventuate, it could exacerbate problems with plant diseases.

He said combined with a shortage of fungicides, it could result in significant crop losses.

“But at the end of the day, it is just a forecast,” Mr Hamilton said.

“We’ve had La Nina years where we’ve had little to no rain, so we can only just keep an eye on the short range and see what happens.

“But at least we are sort of preparing for it to be quite wet.”

A man with a beard standing in front of some crops
Jake Hamilton says he’s slightly concerned about forecasts of a wet spring.(Supplied: Jake Hamilton)

Authorities get ready

Authorities have also started preparations for a wet spring, with flooding in Queensland this year having already claimed more than 20 lives.

Dam operator Sunwater said 11 of its 19 reservoirs across Queensland were either at or close to capacity.

A lot of water rushes over a dam spillway
Leslie Dam at Warwick is one of the 11 dams at full capacity.(Supplied: Chris McFerran)

Sunwater executive general manager of operations, Colin Bendall, said communities needed to be vigilant if more early spring or summer rain was coming.

“Some of the preparation we’ve been doing is we conduct exercises with the local disaster management groups, and the Bureau of Meteorology,” Mr Bendall said.

He said staff were also being trained in the use of emergency action plans in the event of any further spills from dams.

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wet-summer

University of Southern Queensland climatologist Chelsea Jarvis said there was between a 65 to 80 per cent chance regions such as the Darling Downs would exceed their median rainfall.

She said scientists would continue to monitor the situation to see whether the Indian Ocean Dipole strengthened towards the end of the year.

“The end of this Indian Ocean Dipole event, whether it be October or December, can also determine how the likelihood of rain going into summer,” Ms Jarvis said.

“The second thing I’d be looking out for is what’s going on in the Pacific Ocean with this La Nina event, it’s just sort of hanging out there.”

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Categories
Australia

Farmers digging into the eco-friendly powers of dung beetles in far north Queensland

Two men study a clod of earth in a paddock while cattle look on curiously.

A passing observer might think the cattle and dairy farmers of far north Queensland have been having very strangely by digging through their paddocks — elbows deep in cattle dung.

They are on the hunt for an insect that has one of the most unappealing and yet important jobs in the world: eating animal droppings.

Their search comes as soaring fertilizer prices and workforce shortages across Australia accelerate a movement towards natural, non-labor intensive alternatives.

The humble dung beetle offers a real solution.

It recycles effluent waste into organic fertilizer, eradicates flies, aerates the soil and increases water penetration — all while cheerfully munching on dung and asking nothing in return.

Close-up of two large black dung beetles on the palm of a hand.
Onitis vanderkellen dung beetles are abundant at cattle and dairy properties in the region.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

Beetles that specialize in eating cattle dung have been studied and bred extensively in both southern Queensland and southern states since they were introduced by the CSIRO in the 1970s.

But until now, there have not been any comprehensive long-term studies on how to breed and propagate species suited to northern Australia.

Some 15 farmers in far north Queensland have rolled up their sleeves to find out just what is living in the cow pats on their fields.

Cattle dung ‘attracts flies’

Among the participants is Gail Abernethy, who runs a small herd of cattle at a 36-hectare property at Wondecla on the Atherton Tablelands with her husband Victor.

A woman with a hat and sunglasses stands in a paddock holding a shovel in one hand and a dung beetle in the other.
Gail Abernethy participates in dung beetle collection at her cattle farm in Wondecla.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

She said she wanted to increase the population of dung beetles in the region, not only to reduce pasture fouling and fly outbreaks, but also to benefit productivity and the environment.

“There are native dung beetles, but they eat marsupial dung, so before the CSIRO back in the 70s and 80s introduced dung beetles from overseas, there was a lot of dung on the ground because it wasn’t being processed,” Ms Abernethy said .

“Cattle dung attracts flies, and that’s why the Australians had the fly salute, and had corks on their hats because there were so many flies.”

Ms Abernethy said dung beetles took the manure and buried it, which improved soil quality and created aeration of the soil, “so you’ve got less run-off from rainwater.”

“But there’s so little research and development being done in northern Australia, where all the cattle live,” she said.

A dung beetle for every season

Ms Abernethy began ordering dung beetles from southern breeders in 2014, but soon realized there was very little information about what species survived well in northern Australia at different times of year.

She and 14 other farmers obtained a Landcare grant to undertake their own research — and they have not been afraid to get their hands dirty.

“You take your shovel and you find a cow pat that’s at least 24 hours old, and put it in your bucket with some soil, and then empty some water into it, and they will float to the top in a graceful style,” Ms Abernethy said.

“We have collected beetles once a month for 12 months, and we now know we have nine separate species of introduced dung beetles and four predatory species.

“They’re the smaller ones who eat the fly larvae … and some of our beetles don’t live down south. They’re just up here in the tropics.”

Creating plant nutrients

South Australia’s Dr Bernard Doube is among the world’s leading dung beetle ecologists and is helping the group with beetle identification.

A man with a hat, gray beard and glasses kneels in a paddock using a stick to dissect a pile of dung.
Dr Bernard Doube is helping Far North Queensland farmers with dung beetle identification.(Rural ABC: Tanya Murphy)

He said the study had revealed a particularly abundant population of one species of dung beetle, Onitis vanderkelleniwhich was thriving in the Atherton Tablelands.

“It’s got a very restricted distribution up here and hardly anywhere else in Australia, but up here, it’s doing a great job,” Dr Doube said.

“It digs a tunnel to about 20 centimetres and lines the tunnel with dung … and down below, the beetle puts perhaps half a liter of dung, a huge amount really, and lays a whole [lot] of eggs in it.

“The eggs hatch into larvae, and the larvae eat all of the dung, and then [produce] all this processed stuff, which is rather like compost.”

Dr Doube said it created a “great big pile of plant nutrients”.

“The roots grow down there, and you get increased production and increased carbon storage because it’s a relatively permanent change in the structure of the soil,” he said.

“And our experiences from southern Australia indicate that we get about a 30 per cent increase in productivity due to the dung burial activity of the beetles.”

A close up of a small pale grub in a nest of dung
Onitis vanderkelleni larvae nest in dung at a property on the Atherton Tablelands.(Supplied: Louise Gavin)

Importantly, Dr Doube said the study had also revealed a gap in the winter population of dung beetles.

“What this project has shown is that we have quite a diversity of beetles here, and they are active during the summer,” he said.

“But at this time of the year in autumn and winter, although there are some beetles present and they’re burying dung, they’re not very common.”

Dr Doube said the group would now seek further funding to import and breed a species of beetle called Onitis caffer, which was more active during autumn and spring.

“We hope that we can get some financial support to establish a dung beetle importation program again, bringing in this particular beetle, which is going to be most beneficial, in my view,” he said.

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Categories
Australia

Water promised to the Murray-Darling Basin won’t be delivered, despite PM doubling down on commitment

An aerial photo of water flowing through the gates at Lake Menindee, April 2021

Almost a Sydney Harbour’s worth of water committed to Australia’s largest river system can’t be delivered by a 2024 deadline, a new report has been found, despite a promise from the now-Prime Minister his government would deliver the water.

It could cost taxpayers almost $11 billion to deliver 450 gigalitres (GL) of water for the environment across the Murray-Darling system, according to the latest statutory review required under the Water Act.

“Putting aside program and timing limitations, the estimated cost to recover the full 450 GL through efficiency measures is between $3.4 billion and $10.8 billion,” the second review of the Water for the Environment Special Account (WESA) found.

“It is not possible to reach the 450 GL target through the current efficiency measures program … even if the WESA’s time and budget limits were removed.”

Less than $60 million of the $1.7 billion WESA fund for water-saving projects had been spent as of June last year.

WESA reviewers said not enough water had been recovered to date, and requirements for where water savings could be found were too limiting.

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