Changing guardian will not fix river woes

Amid a drying climate, a rapidly increasing population and an unprecedented spurt of mega- developments in the city's heart, it was the organisation that was supposed to be the Swan River's guardian.

Yet last week, the Swan River Trust was unceremoniously earmarked for the scrap heap, a casualty of the State Government's push to cut red tape and streamline the bureaucracy.

Under the change, the Department of Parks and Wildlife will be responsible for managing the Swan.

So what does the decision mean?

And where does it leave the Swan and Canning river system, Perth's beloved but fragile iconic waterway?

Although the answers depend on whom you ask, one theme remains consistent: the rivers are under increasing ecological pressure and natural circumstances aren't helping their cause.

Jane Chambers, a senior researcher at Murdoch University, said the move was a bad one for several reasons.

Since the mid- 1970s, Perth's average annual rainfall has fallen 15 per cent and Dr Chambers said this trend was taking a heavy toll on a river system that relied on winter rains to flush it.

Dwindling rainfall was also leading to the encroachment of seawater further into the Swan and Canning rivers, often causing a stratified effect that left the bottom layer effectively dead.

Added to this is the record scale and pace of development along the waterway's shores.

Projects worth almost $10 billion are under way or in the pipeline, including pet Government initiatives such as Elizabeth Quay and Burswood stadium.

Then there is the continuing problem of nutrient levels - mostly nitrogen and phosphorus linked to fertiliser use - that pours into the Swan at a rate many times higher than sustainable levels.

Dr Chambers said the combination of circumstances demanded more transparency about who was managing the Swan, not less.

"When you have a dedicated agency that is in control of the river and their sole purpose is to look after the river … then that's the best situation," she said.

"If you back off from that and put it into an agency that has a huge mandate for all parks, obviously that's going to dilute the focus."

Former environmental protection authority chairman Colin Porter disagreed, saying the Government could still ensure the same oversight of the Swan through the DPAW. Mr Porter, who has lived in his Bassendean home next to the Swan for 36 years, said the trust had been a mostly ineffective watchdog, focusing on inconsequential issues such as whether he could maintain his frontage.

Having once spearheaded efforts to clean up London's River Thames, he said the Swan still compared favourably with other international rivers, though he warned the Perth river was "deteriorating".

Mr Porter insisted the solution to the river's biggest problem - nutrient loads - was simple and involved adopting water-soluble fertilisers in its catchment areas.

But he said such a move required courage on the Government's part because it would have to mandate or subsidise their use given they were more expensive than conventional fertilisers.

Rob Hammond, a former deputy director-general with the Water Department, shared Mr Porter's views, saying the Swan River needed much more money and not a bureaucratic name change. "Changing the organisation (responsible for the Swan) is like fiddling while Rome burns," he said.

WA Rowing Club member Amy Walters, 25, who has rowed on the Swan most days since she was 12, said she hoped the Government did not allow development to blight the river's condition.

(It) is like fiddling while Rome burns.