DROUGHT more than anything explains why targets to revive the Snowy River have fallen short, says PETER HUNT
The deal to revive the Snowy River has more twists, turns and secret dark pools than the iconic stream it is meant to help.
It took The Weekly Times a fortnight just to obtain the register of water entitlements recovered under the $425 million deal to boost the Snowy River's flows by 212,000 megalitres and pour an extra 70,000 megalitres of environmental water down the Murray River.
What the register revealed was the joint-government enterprise, Water for Rivers, had worked hard to recover 158,808 megalitres of water entitlement by January 31 this year.
But the value of that entitlement had been eroded by drought, "flexible" allocation rules and, in the case of deliveries to the Murray, deception.
Drought, more than anything else, has cut WfR's ability to boost the Snowy River's flows.
Politicians promised to restore the Snowy's flow to 15 per cent within seven years of signing the 2002 deal and 21 per cent within 10 years.
But as every irrigator knows, only a fool would believe a politician's promise to deliver water when we live on the driest inhabited continent on earth.
Anyone who understands water, as irrigators do, knows that while you can create entitlements, there's no guarantee water will be allocated against it.
We're still in the midst of the worst drought on record.
Gaining an allocation of 40 per cent against an entitlement of 158,808 megalitres last season was not a bad effort.
However, some people are justifiably embittered by the Snowy deal and how it has been applied.
The worst elements of the deal are:
The Murray sham
The 2002 deal was meant to deliver 70,000 megalitres of entitlement to the Murray River.
Yet the NSW, Victorian and federal governments made sure the deal didn't erode the value of their $2 billion investment in Snowy Hydro Limited, by giving it control of the 70,000 megalitres as "above-target water".
The deal ensured Snowy Hydro could store and release the Murray River's share of allocations against entitlement whenever it wished.
This meant Snowy Hydro could lock the water into lucrative hedging contracts with coal and gas-fired power plants for years. And that's exactly what has happened.
Since January 2005, Snowy Hydro has accumulated 96,787 megalitres of water in the River Murray Increased Flows account, but has released only 38,000 megalitres.
Barren Box: empty promise
This project was lauded as one of the first and most significant achievements of Murrumbidgee Irrigation Ltd and the WfR corporation in delivering 20,000 megalitres of conveyance water to the Snowy and Murray rivers.
But not one drop of this water has been allocated against the 20,000-megalitre entitlement since the NSW southern Murray Darling Basin water-sharing plans were suspended in November, 2006.
Yet Murrumbidgee irrigators have received an allocation of 95 per cent last season on their high-security entitlement and 21 per cent on general security entitlement on the back of about 150,000 megalitres of conveyance water. Where's the equity?
The Mowamba account: a costly political stunt
Former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks and his NSW counterpart Bob Carr's eagerness to release water down the Snowy River in 2002 came at a high price.
About 65,000 megalitres was borrowed by decommissioning the Mowamba aquaduct so the Premiers could wander around in waders to prove their green credentials in 2002.
That water is still being repaid, cutting the ability to revive the Snowy.
In the end, WfR has done the best it can, recovering irrigation entitlements across the southern Murray, Goulburn and Murrumbidgee to boost the Snowy River's environmental flows.
Since January 31, WfR has raised the volume of entitlement on the register to 197,000 megalitres, with another 18,000 megalitres coming on line by January next year from de-commissioning northern Victoria's Lake Mokoan.
That means that by next January about 215,000 megalitres of entitlement should be available.
About 115,000 megalitres of this water will be high-security entitlement.
But what ends up being delivered against this entitlement is in the lap of the gods, and to some extent, our political leaders.
- Peter Hunt is a senior Weekly Times reporter
