It has been a remarkable season, with irrigation demand reaching historic heights due to dry weather and high water availability.
We have delivered more than 1.2 million megalitres of water to irrigators throughout the season, but on May 15, these orders will come to a stop.
The three-month period between irrigation seasons is invaluable to us, as it allows G-MW to carry out various works that we are unable to do while simultaneously delivering water.
This year it will be particularly useful, as we are set to undertake our most comprehensive dewatering campaign in more than a decade.
Dewatering our channels not only allows us to undertake maintenance on assets that are usually beneath the waterline.
It also enables us to inspect the channels to prioritise future maintenance works and helps kill aquatic weeds by exposing them to frost.
The benefits of the program will be immense. As we finalise our plans for it, we likewise encourage irrigators to finalise their plans for the end of the irrigation season.
It is particularly important irrigators who need water during the irrigation off-season make alternative arrangements, such as filling their tanks and dams before the irrigation season ends.
While we deliver water up to May 15, the final day for people to place orders is May 10.
Before the season ends, customers should also consider how to make the most of any unused water they still have.
Customers with water share in the Broken, Bullarook, Campaspe, Goulburn, Loddon and Murray systems all have the option to carryover any unused allocation. However, the rules regarding carryover vary between these systems.
Customers can sell unused allocation regardless of the system they are in and can either find a buyer themselves or use a broker to do so.
The sale of unused water allocation must be completed by June 30.
Our Customer Experience Team will contact customers who have water in their accounts that will be written off if they do not link it to water shares or trade it before the end of the season.
While the team is not obligated to do this, they go to the effort of doing so each year, as it saves thousands of megalitres from being written off from our customers’ accounts.
If people want to explore their carryover options, I encourage them to use the Victorian Water Register’s carryover calculator.
It shows how carryover, spills and seasonal determinations affect the amount of water available under customers’ entitlements in different scenarios.
The calculator can be found on the Victorian Water Register website at: https://www.waterregister.vic.gov.au/
Further details on carryover and the rules that apply to different systems can be found on the GMW website: https://www.g-mwater.com.au/endofseason
People with any additional questions about carryover or securing water for the irrigation off-season can phone our Customer Experience Team on 1800 013 357.
– Charmaine Quick is the G-MW managing director.
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