About the Lakes

Read Terry Sim's article from the Milang Community News:
The Lakes were Fresh

Fresh or Salt water? Here is an article about letting in the sea, from the Milang Community News, July 2008, by Dr. Kerri Muller of Strathalbyn.

How much evaporates?
Not as much as you might think!
Read a discussion paper
by South and Brooks here

Lake Alexandrina with Point McLeay and Point Sturt in the distance

Lakes Alexandrina and Albert are Australia's largest fresh-water lakes.
Combined area is about 800 sq km, depending on water level.

Originally accepting the whole flow of the Murray Darling River system, an estimated 12 to 14,500 Gigalitres per year on average, they were usually above sea level, due to constriction at the Goolwa channels and the Murray Mouth.

Under natural flow conditions, prior to the implementation of regulation and diversions throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert were predominantly fresh water lakes, only becoming brackish or saline at times of low river flow.
It is evident from the original fringing vegetation, the ecology of the lakes and the fact that irrigation and domestic water supplies were being drawn from the lakes, that there were no substantial concerns about salinity in the lakes until upstream irrigation demands began to increase.
Effectively the natural river flow negated the tidal influence throughout this area at most times. It is also evident from photographs and historical accounts of the river and the lakes that the normal water level was dominated by freshwater flows and was substantially higher than would be expected if the level was dictated by tides alone. The higher natural flows would have been sufficient to back the water levels up to the current levels (0.75m AHD) in many years.

Pre-European settlement, the lakes supported the Ngarrindgeri people, a large, settled, well organised population of 5 to 6,000 people, with abundant food and water.

Local rivers such as the Finniss, Angas and Bremer add a median of 114 Gl (DWLBC estimate) to the fresh water.

The early European settlers found good pastures and water for themselves and their stock.

As water was extracted upstream, the flow in the river dropped alarmingly. By 1900, salt water started to come into the Lakes and affect agriculture and fishing.

Terry Sim of Milang has written about the changes to the Lakes following settlement.
Read his most recent article here.

This document, through information sourced from articles in newspapers, Parliamentary debates, diaries, journals, reports, letters, family and local histories and surveyor's notes records the events that shaped the history of the Lakes from the 1820s, when the first Europeans visited, until construction of the barrages returned it to a freshwater environment in the 1930s.