The Dialectic of Environmental Security (1945–1976)

Abstract

This chapter deals with the period from the end of World War II to the floods of the early 1970s, which established a new baseline for salinity in the Goulburn–Murray Irrigation District (GMID). A post-war boom in infrastructure construction made a rapid expansion of irrigated agriculture possible. Facilitated by the completion of the Big Eildon Dam in 1956, the amount of water available to irrigators in the GMID significantly increased. Eildon and other ambitious river regulation works were key factors in an endeavor to achieve security from the unpredictable moods of a highly dynamic natural environment. However, the quest for security had its own dialectic. The escalation of salinization was one aspect of it. A series of wet years in the early 1970s caused an intensification of salinity problems in the GMID and an upsurge in community agitation, political attention, as well as an intensified search for a solution. Concerned citizens organized in community-owned research farms and action committees. Despite these efforts, by 1976, it was clear that the future of the GMID would be marked by environmental insecurity.