Tears of Salt

Blurred skeleton trees
Ring the salt lake all shimmering
Shades of life memories
Through the long summer simmering

Gone now the sweet water
And green leafiness
A lamb to the slaughter
The price of progress

Uncontrolled clearing
For sheep and for wheat
Replace kangaroo spearing
And wild bush treats

Wounded land crying
In great tears of salt
Wounded land dying
From farming assault

How quickly things change! In less than 100 years Lake Ninan has transformed from a sweet lake with water fresh enough for steam train boilers into a dazzling white salt lake. The lake was the water supply for Wongan Hills as recently as the 1930’s. Today, the skeletons of ancient trees killed by rising salt levels ring the lake and shimmer eerily in the heat haze reflecting off the salt. A stark testament to the consequences of over-clearing!

The matted shallow roots of the native vegetation once inhibited rain-water infiltration into the soil and ensured that fresh rain water flowed into streams and river systems and that water tables remained low. When this vegetation was removed for broad acre wheat and sheep farming, rates of infiltration increased greatly. This caused saline ground-water to rise to the surface and salt to concentrate in the surface soil. Rain-fall run-off into streams became increasingly saline and large tracts of previously arable land became salt-affected. In the case of Lake Ninan the now salty Mortlock River delivered millions of tonnes of salt into the once fresh lake. Dry land salinity is a major problem for both agriculture and biodiversity across Western Australia’s wheat belt which is one of the world’s biodiversity “hot spots.”

One solution is to return native vegetation to over-cleared farm-land but this is not easy in soil that is now salt affected and can no longer support the growth of salt sensitive plant species. Another option is to physically lower water tables using bore drains carved into the hillsides. Both strategies are now being applied with some effect across Western Australia’s wheat belt. And if things weren’t difficult enough already there is the added problem of climate change and a significantly drier climate to contend with.