Cubbie Station
Overview:
Cubbie Station is the largest (privately owned company) irrigation and cotton growing
property in the Southern Hemisphere.
Geographic Features:
Cubbie Station is located in Dirranbandi in South West Queensland. The town is close to the
boarder of Queensland and New South Wales, and sits on the Balonne River.
Cubbie Stations absolute location is: E147*42’
S28*45’
The Culgoa Floodplain National Park is located approximately 130 km to the south-west of
the town Dirranbandi.
Conflict, Stakeholders and Management:
Conflict arises a lot with the amount of water Cubbie Station use. Cubbie Station has a total
of 51 water licenses. It has huge water saving dams across the state, some being 28 km long,
along the Culgoa River. (Part of the MDB/System) Over an average year, Cubbie Station uses
200,000 mega-liters of water. In years of flood/increased rainfall, they can use as much as
500,000 mega-liters. The water is then used on approximately 130 km of Cotton and crops
such as wheat irrigation. The station is licensed to take 460,000 mega liters. The property
has the capacity to grow approximately 200 km of cotton.
An obvious conflict arises as to the use of such large quantities of water, being that Australia
is the largest inhabited land mass in the world, surely the largest cotton industry in the
Southern Hemisphere shouldn’t exist in Australia. Especially when we could continue to use
the water for more sustainable agricultural use-i.e agricultural crops, for food and/or cattle
(although cattle and livestock requires huge amounts of water also, it doesn’t require
flooding of areas.)
Other conflicts arise as Cubbie Stations storage dams, levees and channels threaten
floodplains, grazing lands, rivers, lakes and wetlands downstream of it (the bulk of the
MDB). In particular the Narran Lakes Wetlands in NSW, and internationally regognised area
is under serious, and an unpredictable threat. University of NSW’s Professor of
environmental science; Richard Kingsford explains: "The tragedy is its legacy on the rivers,
the floodplain and the Narran Lakes. It's going to be a running sore for the next 200 years."
Furthur assessment by the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Dr Arlene Buchan puts in
her part; "It's obscene that it should ever have been allowed to get as big as it is. It's not as if
we didn't understand at the time it was a bad idea.
Complete also a table on how management impacts stakeholders
Issue:
Drought years.
Stakeholder:
The Company Itself
(managing director John
Grabbe), and its
shareholders/investors.
State and Federal
Governments individual
policies on water use.
The various environmental
groups, farmers, MBA, and
governments themselves in
these states.
Sustainability of local and
migrating birds, as well as
flora and fauna throughout
the MDB
The Flora and Fauna itself,
environmentalists groups,
inc. MDBA.
Impact:
In 2006, the company almost
went bankrupt due to lack of
water in the country/flowing
down river towards their
dams, leading to a decline of
grown, and in turn, sold
produce.
Different State and Federal
Governments have different
laws concerning water use,
meaning that individuals
have to abide by these rules,
while Cubbie Station uses
the water how it wants,
because of their vast water
owning licenses.
Much of the basin, including
the Culoga Floodplains
National Park, Narran Lakes
Floodplains, Barmah Forest
wetlands and the Coorong
rely on heavily on flooding
waters from up river to make
them efficiently flood/flush
out stank or salty water, and
provide local flora and
thousands of species of
water birds with fresh water,
full of nutrients for them to
survive off.
Bibliography:
http://www.waterplanning.org.au/news/letting-the-rivers-free
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubbie_Station