General News
21 July, 2024
Taskforce seeks details on 'remaining pool'
IRRIGATORS want to know the size of future water entitlement pools if the Federal Government succeeds in buying back 70 gigalitres in the southern Murray Darling Basin. Major players from the Boort and Pyramid Hill districts met last Wednesday ahead...
IRRIGATORS want to know the size of future water entitlement pools if the Federal Government succeeds in buying back 70 gigalitres in the southern Murray Darling Basin.
Major players from the Boort and Pyramid Hill districts met last Wednesday ahead of this week’s opening of buyback tenders.
“We’re expected to keep farming when what water we did have has been cut in half before the buybacks,” said Laurie Maxted, a member of the informal taskforce formed at the meeting in Boort.
“They (the Government) keep talking about the consumptive water pool but they don’t say how much less there will be for irrigators.
“Our biggest concern is for the lean years ... there will be people going belly up, selling or just giving the (farming) game away.
“That’s not what the Government is taking into account.”
The group of local irrigators say they had been told the Victorian Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action would revisit water areas and make assessments “channel by channel and pod by pod” to identify further rationalisation of water. Mr Maxted said: “They have already done that. We have done the heavy work when it comes to taking water out of the area.”
Water entitlements in the Boort and Pyramid Hill districts have dropped from a peak 243,000 megalitres to 100,000 mega-litres a year before the latest phase of buybacks.
“Now they are wanting to do it again,” Mr Maxted said. “We’ve only got the dinky-di long-haul irrigators left.”
With channels servicing Pyramid Hill, Boort, Durham Ox and Calivil still needed, Mr Maxted said it would be difficult to close any areas.
And he said he had not heard of any Loddon irrigators interested in taking up buyback offers from the Government.
“Everyone still needs a supply of water.”
Loddon Mayor Gavan Holt and CEO Lincoln Fitzgerald attended the Boort talks that were called within days of Water Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to began buybacks.
Cr Holt said the impact on Loddon communities would be discussed by councillors at their July meeting next week.
“It is vitally important for us to seek the best outcomes for all our communities,’ Cr Holt said.
Loddon Shire representatives at the Australian Local Government Association conference in Canberra earlier this month called on the Government to reject open market buy backs and put communities at the heart of any water recovery plans. Murray River Group of Councils also gained conference support to tell the Australian Government to revise the proposed compensation package for communities, labelling current offers as “grossly inadequate”.
Loddon irrigators have said they fear for local communities and economies when drought next hits.