In so many ways it parallels a human life.

It is born just a couple of kilometres above Cowombat Flat and passes through its formative years while still high in the alps.

By the time it tumbles and surges down past the Leatherbarrel Creek and the Buckwong Creek to Tom Groggin Station it is probably akin to the turbulent, unpredictable, sometimes wild and uncontrolled years of adolescence.

Then as it breaks out into the lush river flats of Biggara right down to where it is tamed by Lake Hume, it assumes the nature of a wild child just starting to settle down and prepare for the long journey that is life.

Below Lake Hume, below Yarrawonga, it continues to mature, the wild beauty replaced by a more mature, slightly more predictable way of life.

By the time Echuca, then Swan Hill and then Mildura come and go, our river is older, slower and wider. A mature river; a river still ageing gracefully despite the rigours of life and abuse, by man.

The river, because it is now well and truly controlled and manipulated, is no longer the body and soul it was just a century ago.

But for all those setbacks, the river remains a powerful force. At least twice a day it is beautified by the greatest make-up artist of all, Mother Nature.

And then there are the river’s constant companions, lifelong friends if you like, in the form of river red gums of all ages, shapes and sizes.

Some long ago lost the will, or means, to live. Others are in the throes of death. But, like our very own children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, there is a family of new red gums, some already close to

middle age, and others just babies, ready to continue the dynasty.

But we all grow old, we all feel the ravages of time, the abuses of too much and too little of the things that are bad for us and the things that are good for us.

As we grow old there are wonderful new experiences and precious memories of times long passed.

And so it is with our mighty Murray River.

Beyond Mildura to Blanchetown this, big, slow old river is hemmed in many places by soaring, spectacularly hued cliffs.

We slow down. We are more vulnerable to things that we cannot control or withstand.

And so it is with our river as it passes through what is, to all intents and purposes, one of the last obstacles in its long journey — the lock at Blanchetown, 274 river kilometres from its end.

By now it is clear the river is ailing from abuses, both by man and nature. The dried or drying lagoons are perhaps our equivalent of departed family members and friends.

Then comes the twilight years, the gentle, imperceptible move into Lake Alexandrina.

Could this be our equivalent of leaving the family home for the final years in a retirement village or nursing home?

But before our river can die gracefully in the bosom of the Southern Ocean, there is one last obstacle in the form of a 632m-long salt barrage a couple of kilometres downstream of Goolwa.

The barrage is there to save the river and the lake from saltwater surging in from the ocean.

It is only in times of a full river, and best of all, in times of flood, that the barrage is no longer an insurmountable obstacle.

From there it is the last moments of an unforgettable life, a brief journey along a channel that can change as quickly as night becomes day, to that final flurry of defiance.

Once again, as I stand in this chilly water, a place so different from where our journey started so many weeks ago, I can only wonder at the power, the might and the majesty of our mighty Murray River.

A battle to the end

GORDON Doley has lived in the Goolwa region all his 46 years.

This ardent fisherman makes at least two trips a year to Goolwa to fish the Murray River channel as it makes it final run to the Southern Ocean.

He laments the absence of water, salt and fresh, as the mighty Murray River battles the combined ills of over-use and drought.

“This is the worst I have ever seen it,” he says.

“Years ago water used to cover everything around here — the Mundoo Channel used to have three or four feet of water in it.

“The only thing that can save it now is lots of rain.”

Mr Doley said he supported moves to allow salt water to flood the Lower Lakes, including Lake Alexandrina.

“That’s the way the eco-system used to be and that’s the way it should be.”

Just a few hundred metres from where Mr Doley was fishing, a large sign at a car park almost opposite the Murray’s mouth, explained ongoing efforts to keep the river mouth open.

The sign explains that because of the lack of water coming through the barrage at Goolwa the mouth was in danger of closing.

A severe restriction of the mouth would have a major ecological impact on the Coorong.

The sign says the mouth closed for the first time in 1981.

“There is more sand inside the mouth now than in 1981,” it reads.

“With the current drought in the Murray-Darling basin and low flows in the Murray River, the mouth will close again if action is not taken.”

The South Australian Government has started to remove sand to reduce the impact on the mouth.

The sand dredging started in 2002 and two dredges now operate 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Goolwa divided in a fight for the river

GOOLWA, once again, is a town divided.

Not since the controversy of the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair of the late 1980s and 1990s, has this charming old river port town been split in two by public opinion.

And it’s all because of the drought and the up-river demand for water to sustain the vast tracts of citrus groves, orchards, olive and almond groves.

For two years now the flow in the Murray near Blanchetown has slowly dwindled and the level of the region known as the Lower Lakes, including Lake Alexandrina, has fallen day by day to the stage where it is now more than 2m below where it should be.

It is this lack of inflow and declining lake-river level that is causing some Goolwa people to call for the salt water barrages to be opened to allow salt water to flow into the lake and river.

But others in the community vehemently oppose such a strategy saying it would result in environmental disaster.

Alexandrina Council, which is based in Goolwa, strongly opposes the barrage plan as well as a suggestion the Murray River should be dammed at Wellington, where the river flows into Lake Alexandrina.

Council chief executive John Coombe said the “wild” suggestion of allowing sea water into the river and lake system was dividing the community.

“Sea water would be an absolute last resort and people who suggest opening the barrages and letting sea water in as in the past, do not understand the past,” he said.

“The barrages were put in in the late 1930s to address the issue of over-allocation of water in the Murray-Darling system.

“We are not getting enough water down the river to flush the lake and the mouth and any suggestion of a weir at Wellington is fraught with danger.

“Each year 400,000 tonnes of salt and nutrients flow out of the river into the lake, and then into the sea.

Mr Coombe said time now was the killer for the region.

He said the release of 250 gigalitres of water from upstream locks and storages would help address the issue of acidification of soil, which was a huge issue looming large and quickly on the horizon.

“We do not have any more time,” he said.

Mecca for boating is left high and dry

GOOLWA is a town in crisis.

This grand old town, which sits alongside the Murray River, just a few kilometres from where the river should be flowing into the Southern Ocean, is, like the river, a victim of drought.

This is where the real impact of drought and upstream water use becomes undeniably evident.

The river and the lake it flows through, Lake Alexandrina, are more than 2m below their normal level, and dropping.

The situation is so grim Alexandrina Council just last week wrote to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd asking him to personally intervene and release at least 250?gigalitres from upriver locks and storages to save the lake, the river and Goolwa.

Council chief executive John Coombe said the situation had been impacted by drought.

“But from our point of view, it is fundamentally over-use and mismanagement,” Mr Coombe said.

“The impact down here is quite severe.”

The lack of water from the Murray River was causing major environmental problems and also severely affecting tourism, businesses and employment.

“We have seen more than 80?per cent of our recreational craft leave the area,” Mr Coombe said.

“We had the highest number of recreational craft in South Australia and from an economic point of view, each boatie would spend an average of $10,000 a year in Goolwa.

“We estimate $4?million has gone out of our economy and that has led to a loss of jobs, and businesses have closed.”

The council strongly supported the independent control of the Murray-Darling system.

One of the fundamental issues was the need to identify how much water the system needed to be environmentally sustainable.

“The authorities need to look at allocations and the impact on the environment,” Mr Coombe said.

“We are at the stage where the situation is so desperate that there is the wild suggestion of allowing sea water into the river and lake, and that is dividing the community.

“We have campaigned to have a minimum of 250?gigalitres released from upstream storages to provide us with the opportunity to see us through summer and well into next year.

“It would also see the pool level in the lower reaches rise between 0.4 and 0.6 of a metre in the lower reaches and also flush the system.

“The pool level in the locks is fine so why can’t they reduce those pool levels by 150mm and let that water come down through the system?

“The South Australian Government talks about guaranteeing critical human needs but we talk about the critical environmental needs of the river and the lake.”