Snowy Mountain Scheme – Dr Anthony Turton
After the Second World War, many of the British Commonwealth countries underwent a significant transformation as returning soldiers brought home ideas and experiences from foreign lands. This was certainly the case for Australia and South Africa, both of which were mining-based economies ready for rapid development.
In the case of Australia, we need to understand that economic development has taken place within defined constraints.
Firstly, the landmass is physically large, and generally quite arid. This means that spatial development is unevenly dispersed.
Secondly, the political architecture is based on several independent colonies, each at different stages of constitutional development, with a federal form of government. Sovereignty is a complex issue, initially with limited powers and authority at the federal level, while each province / state chose to retain different degrees of autonomy.
Thirdly, from an infrastructural perspective, the vast size of the landmass, combined with the uneven density of population, and the absence of a strong central authority, meant that constitutional evolution is directly linked to the development of major programs. More importantly, there was no national energy grid at the end of the Second World War. Therefore, the development of a regional grid spanning several states was the precursor for subsequent upgrades.
The Snowy Mountain Project
The Snowy Mountain Project is a case study in the establishment of a regional energy grid as a foundation for economic development, running in parallel with constitutional evolution designed to create the legal and institutional arrangements needed to attract skills while creating both water and energy security for a young nation.
Map of Australia showing the location of the Snowy Mountains
The genesis of the Snowy Mountain Project was a decision to divert water from the snowmelt of the Australian Alps, into the Murrumbidgee River for irrigation purposes. The Government of New South Wales (NSW) wanted to develop irrigated agriculture by diverting the reliable baseflow from the winter snowmelt into the Murrumbidgee River. However, the Government of the State of Victoria (VIC) wanted energy, so their vision was to divert the Snowy River into the Murray. Discussion over these two opposing needs collectively rose concerns about the cumulative downstream impact in the Murray-Darling basin, so the Government of South Australia decided to engage to protect its interests.
Physical Layout of the Snowy Mountain Project
The political culture in Australia is an important factor in any understanding of major infrastructural development programs, so in 1946 the federal government established a committee to evaluate these competing demands. The committee was mandated to generate an accurate cost-benefit analysis on which they could base future decisions in the collective national interest. In 1948 a report was submitted for consideration. This report tried to address the competing needs of the three states, by exploring ways to combine the needs for irrigated agriculture with the need for energy, while minimising the downstream impact.
In 1949 a new law was debated under the defence legislation, with the latter being a constitutional right that the federal government had. Arising from this was the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Power Act, which created an institutional structure known as the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority (SMHA). This launched a decade of negotiation and legislative processes in the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. We can think of this as policy and legislative harmonization within a federal legal framework where powers are decentralized. More importantly, the national security legislation provided the initial framework, so we can think of this project as being one of creating water and energy security with benefits outside of the immediate footprint of the project. Emerging from this decade of policy harmonization was the Snowy Mountain Agreement that was reached in 1959.
With this agreement now in place, the program rapidly took on a new sense of urgency. William Hudson, a highly respected engineer from New Zealand, was appointed as the lead and he became the Chairman of the SMHA. Agreement was reached with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to provide technical assistance where needed, building on their experience in the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), created at the end of the Second World War in which Australia was part of the Allied Forces (USA, France and Britain) to finance post-war reconstruction, provided a loan of USD 100 M. This secured a massive recruitment drive that was launched into 32 countries to bring in the skilled workers needed. This saw the eventual influx of 100,000 people, typically from European countries that had previously been at war with each other. This is an important factor because it became a model for national economic development based on an immigration policy designed to attract and retain skilled people. The effects of this approach are still evident today in parts of Australia outside of the immediate epicentre of the Snowy Mountain Scheme.
With the design now agreed upon, and the recruitment of skilled people underway, the project was rolled out in a systematic but rapid way. A staggering 1,600 km of paved roadway was built to sustain the 7 townships and 100 camps located in strategic places. This meant that multiple construction sites were run in parallel, so sequential planning was critical as 16 major dams and 7 hydro-power stations were built. These were linked by 145 km of underground tunnel, 80 km of pipeline and aqueducts powered by 2 pump stations. Only 2% of the total development was visible above ground.
To coordinate a project of this complexity, the first transistorised computer was used. It was one of the first in the world and was given the name “Snowcom”. This fast-tracked the adoption of a digital architecture that is now part of everyday life in Australia. But here is where it becomes really interesting, because the Australian government was focussed on establishing the infrastructural foundation on which all future economic development would be based. This meant that lessons learnt had to be captured within an institution that would endure longer than the project itself. This had many spinoffs, including a government-driven immigration policy designed to attract and retain skilled persons, as well as the creation of the Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation (SMEC), which is an internationally respected consulting company to this day.
This vision created the platform onto which a future strategically important renewable energy project could be built. This will be dealt with in a separate article. The Snowy Mountain Project delivers 2,100 gigalitres of water per year into the Murray-Darling Basin. This has created an irrigated agriculture industry worth AUD 3 billion per annum, sustaining 40% of the total production in Australia. This will also be dealt with in more detail in a separate article.
Mitigating Unintended Consequences
As with all infrastructure projects on this sort of scale, there are unintended consequences that typically take a few decades to manifest. This resulted in the formation of the Snowy River Alliance in 1996, which raised concern over habitat loss for the Duck Billed Platypus. In 1998 the Snowy Water Inquiry was launched in response to downstream concerns over the cumulative impact of streamflow reduction or modification. This highlighted the issue of Instream Flow Requirements (IFR) that had to be defined. A broad agreement was reached that 15% of the flow would be used for the retention of ecological integrity. These are known internationally as environmental flows and they are becoming increasingly important as many countries approach the limit of their available hydrological resources. Significantly, Australia was once again at the forefront of this trend. Close cooperation with aquatic scientists in other countries ensued, with South Africa being a direct beneficiary of that knowledge[1] at a time when the National Water Act was being redrafted to mandate IFR rules[2] and the rehabilitation of aquatic ecosystems impacted by inter-basin transfers[3]. It was at this stage that the River Continuum Concept (RCC), pioneered in the 1980’s by Dr Vannote, Dr Wayne Minshall, Kenneth Cummins, James Sedell and Colbert Cushing[4], began to take root outside of the USA. Once again, Australia was a fast follower, rapidly institutionalising these complex concepts. This saw the establishment of limnology and aquatic ecosystem ecology as distinct disciplines within various universities.
In 2000, the Government of Victoria and NSW agreed to adopt an IFR target of 28% in the Murray-Darling Basin. This will be deal with in a separate article because the issues are complex and easily politicised, so it was highly contested. In 2002 the first deliberate release of IFR water from the Mowomba Weir took place. In 2017 the reduced IFR target of 21% was reached for the first time.
A notable element of the risk mitigation strategy is the Riverine Recovery Project, designed to restore ecological integrity to counter the cumulative impact of the IFR disruption caused by the Snowy Mountain Project. This is highly contested, with some commentators referring to “water wars”[5], and is sometimes centred on wetland rehabilitation, or the creation of artificial engineered wetland systems. This will be dealt with in subsequent articles because of the scope of the transition from a linear to a circular economy. For the time being it is sufficient to say that innovative projects are being created, some of which involve constructed wetlands as part of the mitigation strategy.
Conclusion
The Snowy Mountain Scheme is an excellent example of the role of infrastructure in the pursuit of national development objectives. In this specific case it has created an energy platform that is now being upgraded as a critical component of the renewable energy strategy, known as Snowy II. It is also the engineered foundation for the establishment of a substantial irrigated agricultural economy. More importantly however, it has also contributed to constitutional development in a federal structure as the competing interests of three states – Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia – are harmonised and balanced against the greater need for the rest of the country. Spin-offs include a sophisticated immigration policy based on the defined needs for skilled persons, underpinned by the need to retain those skills once recruited. Consequently, it has directly impacted on the creation of a multicultural society of immigrants. Knowledge gained has been institutionalised, and the mitigation of risks arising from the unintended consequences of engineering on such a scale, has triggered a research and development capacity that includes ecosystem rehabilitation and the scientific measurement of multivariate concepts such as IFR rules and targets. This project has been foundational in the creation of a modern economy in Australia, so it is fitting that the Australian parliament is located close to the Snowy Mountain Project, and the modernization in 1981 became the second biggest infrastructure project after the Snowy scheme.
[1] Davies, B.R., O’Keefe, J.H. & Snaddon, C.D. 1993. A Synthesis of the Ecological Functioning, Conservation and Management of South African River Ecosystems. Water Research Commission Report No. TT 62/93. Pretoria: Water Research Commission.
[2] Puckridge, J.T., Sheldon, F., Boulton, A.J. & Walker, K.F. 1993. The Flood Pulse Concept applied to Rivers with Variable Flow Regimes. In Davies, et al., 1993. A Synthesis of the Ecological Functioning, Conservation and Management of South African River Ecosystems. Water Research Commission Report No. TT 62/93. Pretoria: Water Research Commission.
[3] Heyns, P. 2002. Interbasin Transfer of Water Between SADC Countries: A Development Challenge for the Future. In Turton, A.R. & Henwood, R. (Eds.) Hydropolitics in the Developing World: A Southern African Perspective. Pretoria: African Water Issues Research Unit (AWIRU). Pp157-176.; Basson, M.S. 1995. South African Water Transfer Schemes and their Impact on the Southern African Region, in Matiza, T., Craft, S. & Dale, P. (Eds.) Water Resource Use in the Zambezi Basin. Proceedings of a Workshop held in Kasane, Botswana, 28 April – 2 May 1993. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
[4] Vannote, R.L., G.W. Minshall, K.W. Cummins, J.R. Sedell, and C.E. Cushing. 1980. The river continuum concept. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 37:130-137.
[5] Davies, A. 2019. Water Wars: Will Politics Destroy the Murray-Darling Basin Plan – and the River Itself. In The Guardian. 14 December 2019. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/dec/14/water-wars-will-politics-destroy-the-murray-darling-basin-plan-and-the-river-system-itself
Dr Anthony Turton is the Head of Strategy at Nexus Resilience Group and a former Deputy Governor of the World Water Council. An authority on the notion of water as a national security issue, he holds a PhD in Hydropolitics and advised both Mikhail Gorbachev and US Secretary of Defense William Cohen on strategic water security at the end of the Cold War. He is a founder of the South African Water Chamber and African Water Issues Research Institute, and is the inventor of the nature-based “Wetland in a Box” water treatment system.
