The 95 per cent of Australians outside our region must wonder what makes our locals such ardent water whingers. For more than two decades, Country News has done a great job publicising their viewpoints.
Factors shaping the local opinions started with the demise of the 2000 Gl irrigation water use in the Goulburn-Murray Water region at the turn of the century.
It now looks like being around 800 Gl annually and may even be less depending on the region’s contribution to the 450 Gl sought by the Murray-Darling Basin, perhaps part of First Nations water, reactions of local willing sellers of water to the Commonwealth offers and the demands of arid zone irrigators in dry seasons.
Meanwhile, DEECA’s Victorian Water Register still proclaims to the nation that some 2000 Gl of ‘unused’ water is in northern Victorian storages.
In fact nearly all this ‘unused’ water is committed water.
Most is committed to providing allocation for next season. It is what has made our G-MW region so reliable.
About half of this ‘unused’ water is now associated with ensuring the high-reliability water shares now belonging to environmental water authorities can also enjoy reliability of supply next season.
No wonder the environmental water holder, in recognising the reliability of Victoria’s HRWS, makes it a targeted product to acquire.
Our irrigation districts were established purposively to achieve reliability by conservatively allocating water in storages. This is a key characteristic that DEECA’s language does not appear to recognise.
Water products across the Murray-Darling Basin vary markedly in reliability of supply.
It must seem entirely logical for people outside our region to think Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is doing the right thing by continuing to target Victoria’s reliable water with so much apparently ‘unused’.
After, all the current approach of connectivity between irrigation regions and recreation demands in the Lower Lakes is about the culture of sharing it around without concern about enormous evaporation and conveyance losses.
It has nothing to do with the relative water efficiency to grow the tonnage/volume of agricultural produce per megalitre that is achieved in our temperate zone.
Outsiders argue that a conservative approach to seasonal allocation is not relevant in a connected system.
This approach means irrigators compete for water and those having to protect permanent plantings can justify the higher value being given to this water in drier seasons.
The key to this region’s irrigation future lies in protecting the comparative certainty of allocation by committing stored water for next season, especially in view of climate change projections.
Secondly we need to have affordable water. This will disappear unless the economies of scale can be achieved in our distribution system that was modernised with billions of public dollars.
Currently water terminology and language does not help in proper national understanding and existing outside perception threatens our region.
Barry Croke, Shepparton
