NSW Water Minister Phil Koperberg: Photo:

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High security users to benefit, general security users miss out

IN MIXED news for local irrigators, high security users look set to end the year with their full water complement after receiving a further 5 per cent allocation.
However, the chance of general security users seeing any water this year is becoming increasingly unlikely.
NSW Water Minister Phil Koperberg announced the small increase while in Griffith to meet with livestock producers on Friday, but tempered the good news with a warning the drought could get worse.
The allocation takes the security allocation in the Murr-umbidgee Valley from 80 per cent to 85 per cent, including the carryover from last season.
Murrumbidgee Irrigation chairman Dick Thompson said the announcement, while welcome, was indicative of the poor inflows into the catchments over the last month.
“It’s a very small allocation announced by the minister, that really reflects the below-average inflows we’ve had in the last month,” Mr Thompson said.
“Inflows have not improved and in fact, this October probably ended up being virtually as bad as last October.”
While the announcement brings high security irrigators closer to their full allocation, before general security irrigators can see a drop of water the state government must repay over 100,000 megalitres borrowed from the environment.
It is a situation that has some general security users uneasy, with many farmers desperate to water their summer crops, according to Mr Thompson.
“They’re certainly not comfortable with it. But I don’t think the government’s willing to suspend the plan to the extent that they’ll allocate environmental water to general security,” he said.
“If it got to the point right now that high security received their full allocation then there would be a major push to see some general security. But if it’s the end of December or something before high security get all of theirs, it’s getting too late really for summer cropping,” he said.
Mr Koperberg said the increase would provide high security users in the MIA with enough water for horticultural production and support the needs of intensive livestock and forestry industries until July 2008, but significant rainfall over the summer months was needed to ensure requirements could be met beyond that date.