Standing in the empty river, with pools of sludge scattered throughout, it’s hard to imagine the flow of water that passes through the Ludlow River each year.
The river cycles from a big torrent in winter to a shallow stream in summer, but for as long as people remember it has never once been dry.
Until now.
The stream began to slow dramatically over summer Mr Donnelly said, and he tried raising alarm bells to intervene with the river’s decline, but the warnings fell on deaf ears.
Mr Donnelly said he needed $35,000 to purchase a solar pump and piping to extract water from an old bore to be released slowly into the river over the coming months.
He said the river would need about as much water as ten to twelve metropolitan swimming pools to avert the drying, but he did not receive a response from those he contacted about it until weeks after his initial correspondence.
In the weeks that passed Mr Donnelly said the group became so desperate to intervene with the river’s decline they ran a garden hose into the drying stream, but eventually he had to admit defeat.
Walking along the barren banks this week, Mr Donnelly expressed his disappointment with the situation.
He said the tiny fish packed into the puddles of sludge that remain on the bottom of the banks with nowhere else to go would be lucky to survive the next month without any rainfall or intervention.
“The river is not functional anymore,” he said.
“How do we get the fish, gilgies and wildlife back unless we gather them from somewhere else?”
Data from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulations shows the flow of the Ludlow River has been declining for the past 20 years, with record low flows noted in 2023.
Mr Donnelly expressed his disappointment the river has been left to fend for itself in this age of climate change.
He said the disaster could have been avoided, or its impacts reduced had there been some intervention, but now it will take thousands of dollars to restore the river to its previous health.