NSW Irrigators need more Water to finish Crops
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Dairy News
- Sep 05, 2018
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Southern Riverina Irrigators, Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia, Murray Valley Private Diverters and Murray Irrigation are continuing to work with the Federal and NSW ministers, governments and their agencies to source water for General Security water holders in the NSW Murray Valley.
RGA is pursuing the issue from a commodity perspective, SRI and MVPD from the perspective of providing a solution and relief to their colleagues, and MIL is leveraging its commercial strength to reduce the risk of any possible solution.
At the moment, the government says that for the NSW Murray, all volumes of water currently held in storages have been allocated and that close to 300GL has already been loaned from environmental accounts to underpin current allocations.
There have been a number of options proposed, including the possibility of suspending the Water Sharing Plan as mentioned by Austin Evans at the Deniliquin Water Crisis Rally.
“Suspending the Water Sharing Plan is not popular because it compromises the private property rights of water holders and has the potential to negatively impact the reliability and delivery of carry-over water” chair of SRI Gabrielle Coupland said.
“It’s agreed that carryover must not be compromised. Carryover water respects individual irrigators’ decisions to manage risk and is an extremely valuable water for this region,” RGA president Jeremy Morton said.
“We also know the Federal government has approached all States, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH), and the river operators seeking ways to make water holders utilise their water holdings to assist NSW Murray irrigators.”
State entities are not willing to take the risk that water accessed from their accounts may not be returned for a prolonged period of up to two years or more.
River operators have also been asked to consider making available some of the volume set aside for operational flows. However, just as Murray Irrigation needs its conveyance water to meet delivery requirements, the operators also believe that this water will be required in full to meet operational requirements, in particular if the dry conditions persist.
Murray Valley Private Diverters’ Chair, Andrew Hicks said the respective organisations understand the concern of irrigators and the need to finish crops.
The Government has advised that the current zero allocation reflects low rainfall in the catchment and the MDBA’s modelling scenarios. It’s also acknowledged that reduced water under the Basin Plan has generated upwards pressure on the price of water.
All organisations continue to investigate all reasonable opportunities for access to water as soon as possible in this dry scenario.
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