LOCAL water leaders have demanded the federal government agree to buy a huge parcel of Riverina irrigation entitlement, saying the sale could insulate the MIA against further cuts under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
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A group of irrigators on the Nimmie Caira system between Hay and Balranald have offered to sell their combined water entitlements, infrastructure and 84,000 hectares of land as a package to the government, potentially unlocking the equivalent of 173 gigalitres of water for the environment.
The Murrumbidgee Valley’s remaining “in-valley” water cut target under the basin plan is about 183 gigalitres, meaning if the sale proceeds, the region’s farmers may have virtually no more water taken.
The NSW government has backed the sale, while the federal government is still considering it.
Coleambally Irrigation CEO John Culleton said if the sale proceeded, it would be the most significant development for local irrigators in the basin plan debate so far.
“Here we have a group of farmers who want to sell their entitlements and a group of communities who accept that and understand that they will receive money to compensate them (for the loss of productive water),” Mr Culleton said.
“The farmers win, the communities win and the environment wins.
“There is already an irrigation system there that can be used to deliver the water to the key environmental target, in this case the Low Bidgee.
“We’re cautiously optimistic the Commonwealth will avail itself of this opporunity.”
He said the MIA would receive greatest benefit if the government counted the water towards the region’s in-valley component of the plan, rather than the shared component.
A recently finalised feasibility study has supported the sale.
But not everyone is so enamoured of the deal, with Junee-based Liberal senator Bill Heffernan claiming the sale would amount to a “fraud of the public purse”.
“What is about to happen, in my view, will be a fraud of the public purse which warrants an immediate and urgent Senate inquiry,” he said.
“I mean I don’t want to rain on the lotto win that’s proposed for these people down there, but as I understand it, the government
is authorised to buy back the water so they’re gonna issue a licence knowing it’s gonna be bought back, at two-and-a-half times the real commercial value of it.
“You add in the infrastructure costs etcetera that are in this package, it will be four times the real value.”
A meeting between the NSW and federal governments to discuss the sale was held last week and talks will continue.