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APRIL 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
used storage dams to hoardwater for their
fields, and that the government-regulated
water allocations to farmers didn’t lower
along with the water level until much
later in the drought. In places like Spain
and America, he knew, water allocation
is assigned based on the output at the
river mouth. If the river runs low one
month, everyone along it gets less water.
This drought affected everyone along the
Murray, but no one had to sacrifice like
those on the lower lakes.
“It felt like one of those old movies
where a town was shrouded in darkness
because of a curse,” says Cooper. “It felt
like nothing could get done. I beganwork-
ing with people, and we called ourselves
Goolwa NeedsWater Now.” Cooper’s solu-
tion was simple—reduce farmers’ water
allocations upriver to give Goolwa more
freshwater, or open the Goolwa Barrage
to let in seawater. “I didn’t care what kind
of water it was, I just wanted them to put
something back in the pond.”
A
USSIESAREATOUGHBUNCH.
They’ve lived off of rainwater
for generations. Kangaroos
delay the growth of their embryos during
hard times. Plants flourish a er brush-
fires. It’s a continent bred onhardship. But
while many of the old-timers in Goolwa
maintained a defiant a itude to this latest
drought, invoking the mantra “The land
won’t break us,” theyweren’t exactly ready
to stand idly by. These were men raised
in the bush at a time when people were
strung up for lesser crimes than political
inaction. Some of themhad been through
wars, they told Cooper. Some knew how
to blow things up. A barrage, for instance.
“You know what one of them told me?
‘I’m 90 years old, what are they going to
do? Put me in jail for four years?’” Cooper
laughs. “I told him he’d kill himself, and
he said, ‘Well, put a nice plaque up in the
main street, will ya?’”
Instead, Cooper grabbed a bunch of
buckets and 20 people, and bucket by
bucket began quenching the thirsty
Murray with the Southern Ocean. Since
Adelaide draws its drinking supply from
the lower lakes, this show of defiance
risked a $10,000 fine, even though the
height of the ocean was nearly 5 feet
above the Murray and saltwater had
already broken through. When a cop did
show up, he informed the crew that he
was there only to make sure a fight didn’t
break out, and when asked, he ended
up lending a hand. The news crews and
photographers spread the story.
With the success of his bucket brigade,
Cooper printed up and handed out 4,000
Goolwa Needs Water Now postcards to
local businesses, which thenmailed them
in and brought the state government’s
postal system to a grinding halt. Next,
the community sent two paper reams’
worthof le ers. Eventually, the commi ee
rallied 5,000 people to the steps of Parlia-
ment House in Adelaide.
“Last year, I was being rowdy at a bar
somewhere, and a guy came up and asked
if I was Randal Cooper,” says Cooper.
“I said, ‘Yep!’ And he told me that the
campaign me and my friends ran down
in Goolwa was the best they’d ever seen.
He used to be one of the advisers to the
premier. In the end, the premier said to do
whatever it takes to shut those people up.”
In2009, thegovernmentbuilt a regulator
to dam the Goolwa Channel and pump in
water fromLake Alexandrina to cover the
acidic soil. For all the a ending controversy,
it worked. Of course, a year later, flood-
waters made it down from Queensland,
rendering the long-awaited aid moot, but,
asCooper points out, “at leastwe’ll bebe er
prepared for the next drought.”
A
S THE SETTINGSUNGLEAMS
off the Murray, the happy slap-
ping sound of the opaque water
on the yacht club’s dock feels ephemeral
—as if at anyminute, MotherNature could
change her mind and let the river dry up
and the sailboats bare their underbellies
and get stuck in the slop once more. But
that feeling is why the men of the Goolwa
Rega a Yacht Club can’t help but take a
long swig and a long look at that sinfully
beautiful carveof river andbehappier than
they can remember. Because they know
that even without the wind, the sailors
could gather for war stories and their
wives could put on pearls andmingle over
whitebread–wrapped sausages; theyknow
the kids could play on the dock and their
mothers could worry about them falling
into water, not mud; they knowDon Rich-
ardson, the yacht club’s commodore, could
shine his white shoes and sport his all-
white uniform, chest puffed, with a smile
wider than the Murray. This whole joyous
feeling is summed up perfectly by Mayor
KymMcHugh at the awards presentation.
After climbing the stairs of the dark
green semi-trailer, McHugh stands above
a folding table gleaming with trophies
and addresses a crowd of 300 sunburned,
exhausted and smiling people. “What
a tremendous thing,” he says. “Sailing is
back in Goolwa.”
RACHEL STURTZ,
a writer living in Denver,
got the distinct honor of firing the starting
shotgun for one of the sailing heats at the
Classic (and fired it one second too early).
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