IRRIGATORS have branded a $320 million push to replace most of their Dethridge wheels with more accurate water meters an "absurd" waste of money.
The replacement pipe and Flumegate meters range in price from $24,000 to $34,000, compared with just $8000 for a fully installed Dethridge wheel.
The meters are being replaced to meet National Water Initiative standards, which demand irrigators' water usage is measured to within plus or minus 5 per cent of the correct volume.
Victoria's existing Dethridge meters have an average error of 7.5 per cent in favour of irrigators.
Yet while the Victorian Government quibbles over meter errors its counterparts in NSW and Queensland have done virtually nothing to meter millions of megalitres harvested by northern Murray Darling Basin irrigators.
As reported in The Weekly Times last year, irrigators on the Darling River and its tributaries have built thousands of diversion channels and levies across the northern basin to harvest floodwater into unmetered on-farm dams with a combined capacity of 3.2 million megalitres.
But despite the inconsistency the Victorian Government is pushing ahead with plans to replace about 11,000 Dethridge meters under the $2.2 billion Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project.
Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Richard Anderson said it was absurd to spend millions replacing the bulk of Victoria's Dethridge wheels.
"If we're fair dinkum about getting the water balance right we should be looking at the unregulated areas where there are no meters in NSW and Queensland," Mr Anderson said.
"(In Victoria) we'd be better off keeping a lot of our Dethridge wheels and replacing them at the end of their useful lives.
"You might identify the bigger users, who can benefit from the higher flows you get through new magflo or flumegates and leave the others."
But the man in charge of the $2.2 billion NVIRP scheme, Murray Smith, told The Weekly Times Victoria could not afford to sit idle just because other states were lagging on metering.
Mr Smith likened the argument to the Australian Government's push on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, even though China and other nations were not taking action.
The meter-replacement program is expected to salvage about 125,000 megalitres from the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District, which will be shared between irrigators, Melbourne and the environment.
The Dethridge meter replacement program is just part of the $2.2 billion NVIRP investment, which aims to salvage at least 425,000 megalitres by modernising the irrigation system.
Under NVIRP, about 20-30 per cent of Dethridge wheels will be decommissioned, with the remaining 11,000 replaced at a cost of about $320 million.
The meter replacement will deliver water savings at a cost of about $2560 a megalitre.
But this estimate does not include future costs of maintaining and replacing the new meters, estimated by the Goulburn Murray Water corporation to be $216 million.
Irrigators argue the water recovered using more accurate meters is not a water saving, given it simply transfers 7.5 per cent (meter error) of the water used into water "savings". Even G-MW identifies meter error as an "accounting" saving.
The VFF has called for some meter money to go to on-farm water savings, but the Government has refused respond.
Mr Smith said Dethridge meter replacement was crucial.
He said that without more accurate meters NVIRP would struggle to determine whether water losses along channels was due to leakage or meter error.
The VFF warns the rush to replace Dethridge wheels means GMW and its customers face a huge repair and replacement bill.
"We're creating a big problem for the next generation, when the (new) meters need to be repaired and replaced," Mr Anderson said.
