Murray algae a sign of poor river health

More than 680 kilometres of the river is on the highest level of alert, after river managers increased warnings yesterday.

The ''red alert'' now stretches from Wodonga to Barham, affecting major towns in between such as Yarrawonga, Cobram and Echuca.

Under a red alert, people are advised to have no contact with the river or risk gastroenteritis, eye and ear complaints.

The same towns were affected for weeks by a massive algal bloom last year, and Environment Victoria spokeswoman Juliet Le Feuvre said outbreaks were becoming too common.

''Algal blooms are symptoms of long-term decline in river health, and when they start happening every year are a sure sign that the river is suffering from long-term lack of flows,'' she said.

''Providing enough water to prevent algal blooms is a great example of how environmental flows can bring economic benefits as well as ecological ones.''

Growing concerns about the algal bloom came as Victorian water authorities attacked the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for favouring the environment too much in a recent document on reform of the river.

The authority recently released a paper on how a limit on water extraction across the Murray-Darling should be established, but Victorian authorities such as Goulburn-Murray Water said it was too heavily stacked against irrigators and rural economies.

''There is an implication that no degradation of any aspect of the environment can be tolerated at any time,'' said Goulburn-Murray's submission to the authority.

Bendigo's Coliban Water also criticised the document for being ''based too heavily on restoring a natural environment that has long been lost to history''. Central Highlands Water said human needs from the Murray-Darling Basin were not getting ''adequate focus''.

A draft basin plan is due to be released in the middle of the year and put into action in mid-2011.