Irrigators are sounding an alarm over NSW’s proposed reforms designed to preserve Commonwealth-owned environmental water flowing down the Murray Darling system, warning the value of their entitlements may shrink.
The Department of Industry - Water has released a draft exposure Bill on changes to the Water Management Act for public consultation.
The reforms are aimed at issues raised in the Matthews report into water compliance and monitoring and look ahead to NSW’s new requirements under the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
The Bill proposes new regulations for the Water Management Act to increase Ministerial embargo powers.
Currently, the responsible Minister can issue “cease to pump” orders to irrigators to deliver water down river for critical human need.
The changes would grant Regional Water Minister Niall Blair embargo powers to protect environmental water, which in the north is released by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder from dams on the Gwydir and Namoi rivers.
Namoi Valley Irrigators executive officer Jon Maree Baker said the value of entitlement holders’ property rights would take a hit.
“The value of your water licence is tied to not just the entitlement but its reliability, which is enshrined in the Water Sharing Plan,” she said.
“That means people have less equity in the water assets attached to their business, which could trigger unintended impacts.”
Shepherding may be particularly concerning in dry years, when environmental releases are used to boost a low-flowing river.
If a cease to pump order is issued with the proposed embargo powers, to coincide with a peak flow in a dry year, irrigators would lose a rare opportunity to water crops with the portion of water which would otherwise have been available to extraction.
However, shepherding can be a simpler affair in specific circumstances, such as the trial run currently being conducted along the Barwon Darling.
There was no flow when an environmental release was sent, under embargo, to freshen up weir pools and link dry stretches of the river.
The Land understands the environmental shepherding measures in the draft Bill will be contained in the final reforms which are expected to be presented to stakeholders next week, before being introduced to parliament.
Mr Blair has a tough job, balancing his state’s responsibilities to the Basin Plan with irrigator interests and public perception of irrigators, who have wrongly been branded as ‘stealing’ environmental water.
His office said “the new laws won't impact on property rights”.
NSW Irrigators’ submission said the draft bill enabled government to avoid paying compensation.
“All of the proposed measures will impact existing reliability of access for consumptive water users unless off-setting measures are put in place,” it said.
“Imposing new water access rules that result in greater impacts on consumptive water users while preventing those users from seeking compensation is outside the framework of the National Water Initiative (a 2004 Commonwealth-state agreement on water reforms).”
NSW Irrigators said while the proposed powers aimed at unregulated northern rivers, they flagged shepherding embargoes could be deployed in regulated rivers without specific supplementary water sharing rules.
Several irrigator groups said Individual Daily Extraction Limits could be incorporated into an alternate policy replacing the proposed shepherding measures, to share flow based on the proportional allocation of water in a river at any one time.
