Murrumbidgee Field Naturalists
Murrumbidgee Field Naturalists
Please note: Barren Box Swamp is not open to the public. It is owned by Murrumbidgee Irrigation. If you wish to visit, please contact them to organise. There is no public access at the swamp.
Now, with that out of the way, let's get on with the good stuff.
Why would you want to go to Barren Box Swamp? Because its there just doesn't go anywhere near enough to describing it. The whole site is a 6km diameter basin that was once a Black Box depression. The local Wiradjuri people have links with the site going back tens of thousands of years. It was a place that collected water in times of plenty and retained that water for long periods of time.
More recently, it has been a shallow storage area for irrigation water between the MIA and the Mirool Creek systems. When I first came to Griffith in the mid 1980's it was considered the best site for the annual duck hunting season. An outbreak of Alligator Weed saw the end to the duck hunting and the decreased supplies of water for irrigation saw the need for a better approach to the site as water storage.
The restoration works were undertaken to develop a deeper water storage area, a temporary water storage area and to return a part of the site to a near natural ephemeral wetland. Engineering works on the embankments to construct the three cells were complete in 2006. Work is planned on the wetland restoration, but drought and fire have taken their toll and have had an impact of the timing of the plan.
At the time of writing (July 2008) there is some water on the site, and there is a huge number of water birds present. The list of birds is below.
Murrumbidgee Irrigation have plans to develop the site for visitors and to showcase the Wiradjuri heritage, but these are long term plans.
It may not be easy to get into the swamp but it is worth persevering and making the effort to do so.
©2008 MFN
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