River Murray report a ‘shrieking alarm’ for SA water supply
A new report has groups claiming millions of taxpayer dollars are being poured “down the drain” as a fraction of promised water-saving projects are delivered.
A Murray-Darling Basin Authority report released today revealed a 265-gigalitre annual shortfall in environmental water promised to be returned to the crucial waterway.
About $1.4 billion in federal government funds was budgeted for projects to support the waterway with only $733 million spent so far, according to the Murray-Darling Conservation Alliance. Only 13 of 39 water savings projects promised have been completed.
The report, released on Thursday, compared the returned water supply projected when the national plan was first announced in 2017 with the actual result from promised infrastructure projects over the following years.
Murray-Darling Conservation Alliance Co-National Director Craig Wilkins told InDaily that SA has lost out under the current recovery plans that was meant to have huge water-savings with Victoria and New South Wales failing to deliver.
“As the state at the end of the river, we have the most to lose if the basin plan doesn’t deliver the water that was promised to all Australians,” he said.
“At the moment there is a massive shortfall in that water, and that shortfall has been there for the last 10 years, every year so the overall impact on the health of the river has been enormous.”
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In January, Federal Environment and Water Minister Murray Watt listed the “River Murray downstream of the Darling River, and associated aquatic and floodplain systems”, including SA’s Coorong lagoon, as critically endangered.
“When a region is declared critically endangered, it means that there is a greater than 50 per cent chance that the system will collapse within 10 years,” Wilkins said.
“This is a shrieking alarm bell to say that the river needs more water.”
Today’s report is called the “Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism Draft Determination 2026” and focuses on the limits on how much water can be taken from the basin rivers.
The limits were introduced in 2017 to allow 605GL per year to remain available for human, agricultural and industrial consumption, on the condition that water saving projects would be delivered by the New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian governments, using Commonwealth funding.
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A public consultation on the report will run between October 1 and November 1, before the current limits are due to be revised at the end of the year.
Once public feedback is received, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority will provide a recommended amendment to the Basin Plan to Minister Watt.
“Almost a decade on from when these projects were first proposed, and after the Albanese Government’s decision to provide more time to deliver them, it is extremely disappointing that these projects have not been delivered, as promised,” Watt said today.
“In particular, because these projects were designed to return more water to the environment and limit the need for further voluntary buybacks.
“The likely shortfall does not diminish our government’s commitment to work with state governments, industry and local communities to get the balance right between protecting the environment, growing the agricultural sector and supporting basin communities.”
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is an agreement between the federal and state governments to share river water.
Farmers with licences granted by the states can take water from rivers within the Murray–Darling system, which flows from Queensland through to NSW, Victoria and South Australia.
The Conservation Alliance – which is made up of the state’s environment peak bodies including Conservation Council SA, Queensland Conservation Council and Environment Victoria – is calling on Watt to end the current limit system at the end of the year.
“Enough is enough. Minister Watt should draw a line under these projects, recover the shortfall water, return it to the river and move on,” Wilkins said.
“Every South Australian, when they turn on a tap, releases River Murray water that is something that we’ve just forgotten.
“River Murray water is delivered right across Woomera to Ceduna to Keith to right across our state to the Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, everywhere, and certainly a big chunk of Adelaide’s water is heavily reliant on the River Murray.
“The sooner this is addressed, the better, and it needs really strong attention from the federal minister to make all that water returned as quickly as possible.”
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