NSW: Australian should remove dams from rivers: US expert

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-2000
NSW: Australian should remove dams from rivers: US expert

A visiting US expert says Australia should be removing dams and weirs from Australia's
rivers -- not repairing them.

STEPHANIE LINDLOFF has told Australia's first conference on the impact of dams and
weirs that many of south-eastern Australia's 10,000 water obstructions are unnecessary.

As the manager of a river-protection organisation in the United States, Ms LINDLOFF
has overseen the removal of 80 dams from rivers in Wisconsin.

She says repairing river dams can cost three to five times the cost of removal.

Inland Rivers Network coordinator, Dr STUART BLANCH says weirs are relics from an era
when authorities knew little about river ecology and the long term impact of weirs.

He's told the Sydney conference that many of the 5,000 weirs in the Murray-Darling
Basin are unlicensed.

AAP RTV jwb/ah/wz/rt

KEYWORD: DAMS (SYDNEY)

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