VICTORIA alone has met flow criteria for the Murray Darling Basin, writes PETER HUNT
Victoria's is the only state to have met its 627-gigalitre in-valley targets under the Federal Government's draft plan to revive the Murray Darling Basin environmental flows.
Victorian irrigators and the State Government have already sold or locked in deals to deliver an annual average volume of 706GL a year to the basin, also known as cap-equivalent entitlement.
Under the draft plan, water above the 627GL target will go towards meeting the "downstream" needs of the basin, to flush salt out of the system and boost the Murray mouth flow.
Details of the draft released by the Murray Darling Basin Authority calls on NSW, Victoria and South Australia to share the burden of finding another 972GL for the lower Murray.
But Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Richard Anderson said his state's irrigators had done enough for now.
"We've met our in-valley targets and we don't want the Federal Government buying any more out of our market until other states have done their share," Mr Anderson said.
"Buying more water to meet end-of-system (972GL) flows should be put on hold until the Federal Government sees how much can be recovered from environmental works."
The Victorian and NSW governments have developed a range of projects to reduce the volume of water needed to irrigate the southern basin wetlands.
This involves pumping, diverting and regulating water from the river to effectively irrigate the Hattah Lakes, Lindsay Island and other wetlands with, in some cases, 80 per cent less water than trying to create high river flows and overbank flooding.
NSW irrigators and the state government are battling to find the 582GL needed to meet its in-valley targets in the southern-connected basin, let alone meet end-of-system needs.
So far, NSW irrigators have sold 391GL of their entitlement to the Federal Government from the Murrumbidgee, NSW Murray and Lower Darling.
The NSW Government has locked in $708 million of state priority projects, but most of these are in the northern basin.
The other major initiative to recover water in NSW's southern system is the $650 million Private Irrigation Infrastructure Operators Program, managed by the Commonwealth.
But under round one of the funding, only two of the five private projects are in the southern basin.
The NSW Government has recognised it needs more projects in the southern basin, but, as one bureaucrat said, it faced competition for water savings in its own backyard from Water for Rivers (charged with recovering water for the Snowy River).
In South Australian, irrigators have sold 71GL of cap-equivalent entitlement to the Federal Government, putting them within 30GL of the 110GL in-valley target.
Victorian Water Minister Peter Walsh said he did not want to see Victoria get too far ahead of other states in delivering water to the basin.
On the question of pausing or halting the sale of water to the Federal Government, Mr Walsh said Victoria's 4 per cent cap meant no more would be sold to the Commonwealth this season.
"We don't have to make a decision on this until July 2012," Mr Walsh said.
