About the stop the drains coalition

The stop the drains coalition has just one aim: to get the Federal and SA governments to immediately undertake a whole of landscape environmental audit of the drainage, wetlands conservation, revegetation and saltland agricultural components of the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Plan, (USE Project).

This urgent environmental audit is needed to assess the impacts of the past 10 years of work by the USE Project.

This audit must happen before any further drain digging is undertaken.

The stop the drains initiative has been developed by a broad coalition of landholders and their supporters in the Upper South East (USE) of South Australia who, backed by regional conservationists, environmental scientists, agronomists and the majority of the USE community, have a genuine concern about the long term environmental damage caused by drainage work done over the last decade.

Support for an immediate environmental audit includes:

• The Liberal Party of SA
• The Tatiara District Council
• A majority of the USE community
• Many past and some present employees of the USE Project
• Past and present members of the Project's Environmental Management Advisory Group
• State and regional hydrologists
• CSIRO research scientists
• Saltland agronomists
• Conservationists from across the State
• Informed and nationally influential people in the disciplines of environmental science and water management

The stop the drains coalition knows it also has support from like-minded public servants from a range of the most relevant Government Departments, including Primary Industry SA, Department of Environment and Conservation, and even the Department of Land, Water and Biodiversity Conservation which administers the USE Project.

In November 2006, 780 signatures were presented to the SA Parliament opposing the 32km Didicoolum Drain Extension.

Publicity arising from the actions of the stop the drains coalition has created widespread interest in regional South Australia and has alerted many people across the state to the inappropriate and draconian actions of the USE Program Board under the auspices of the Department of Land, Water and Biodiversity Conservation and the SA Government.

The stop the drains coalition recently mounted a legal challenge to stop the digging of the highly contentious Didicoolum Drain Extension. The Minister, the Hon Gail Gago, responded to that legal challenge by gazetting New Regulation Variations accompanied by a Certificate of the Minister.

This substantially unprecedented and heavy handed action meant that digging could proceed on a new compulsorily seized alignment without the approval of Parliament. The Certificate of the Minister also specifically precluded any appeal to the law courts. In effect, the Minister responded to the legal challenge of the stop the drains coalition, implicitly acknowledging its validity, while blocking all means of arguing the case either in the courts or in Parliament.

Stop the drains organized a protest on boundary of the Kyeema property, 30 meters from the site of the excavated deep drain. Landholders instituted a 24 hour vigil and were confronted on the third day by 4 excavators, a bulldozer, 5 paddy wagons and armed police. More than 170 people got off their tractors or stopped what they were doing and faced the threat of a $100,000 fine and 2 years in prison for standing on the Minister's (seized) land. A majority of landholders from the Didicoolum Drain Extension catchment attended, in particular the Padthaway irrigators supported by the Keith irrigators. In all, landholders protesting represented over 250,000 acres of the Upper South East.