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Goulburn-Murray Water (G-MW)

G-MW announced the final 2007/08 seasonal allocations on 1 April 2008.  Water resource improvements received after this date until the end of June 2008 will be used for system operations and allocations during the 2008/09 season.

The final seasonal allocations were as follows:

There was not enough water in the Bullarook system for an irrigation allocation this season. Bullarook Creek customers continued to have access to water for domestic and stock purposes only.

Pumping of Waranga Basin (under the Government’s Drought Relief Package) commenced on 7 April and will continue until late June 2008.

In June 2007, the Minister for Water temporarily qualified rights to water in the Murray, Goulburn, Broken, Campaspe, Loddon and Bullarook systems to make sufficient water available for essential urban and farming needs.

Normal allocation rules resumed on the Goulburn, Murray and Broken systems when allocations on these systems reached 20%. The qualification on the Loddon, Bullarook, and Campaspe systems will remain in place until allocations on these systems reach 50%.

G-MW issued a water quality alert for Tullaroop Reservoir and Tullaroop Creek on 24 January after monitoring detected high levels of potentially toxic blue-green algae.  The situation improved to Alert Level 2 during April and continued to improve slowly throughout May.  G-MW has advised the public and water users that they need to exercise caution when using the water as, even at low concentrations, people sensitive to blue-green algae can have a reaction.

On 15 May G-MW released the outlook for seasonal allocations at the start of the 2008/09 season using the driest one-third of seasonal autumn inflow records, and the most efficient system operations for low deliveries.

• Average inflow conditions will not provide enough water to allocate water for irrigation on 1 July 2008. All systems will begin the 2008/09 season with zero seasonal allocations.
• By 15 August 2008, average inflows are expected to allow non-zero allocations in the Murray, Broken, Goulburn, Campaspe and Loddon systems.
• The outlook for the 15 August 2008 seasonal allocations (% of high-reliability water share) is summarised in the table below.

* Low-reliability water shares allocated

Significant winter and spring inflows are the key elements to overcoming a potential water shortage.  Next season's irrigation allocations will rely almost entirely on the inflows between July and November. The first seasonal allocations for 2008/09 will be announced on 1 July 2008.

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Coliban Rural System

Coliban Water increased its rural season allocation to 35% on 14 December and it remained at 35% throughout May.

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Wimmera Mallee Domestic and Stock Supply System

Supplies to all customer groups are in accordance with the restriction schedule contained in the Wimmera-Glenelg bulk entitlements as follows:

• towns are on Stage 4 restrictions;
• domestic and stock supply to farms is limited to one dam per enterprise in most areas, with limited pipeline supply in areas where  the pipelining is completed, and carting of water around Berriwillock and Culgoa;
• irrigation supplies are zero;
• no supply is available for irrigation diversions on the Wimmera River;
• supply to recreation lakes has been nil since 2000.

At 31 May 2008, storages in the Wimmera-Mallee domestic and stock supply system were at 3.4% of capacity.  This was an increase of 0.1% since April.

Construction of Supply System 1, Supply System 5 and Supply System 7 is virtually complete. The tapping and metering program is well advanced.

Over 1,500 kilometres of pipeline for Supply System 2 (Woomelang) has been laid, with construction on target for supply in late 2008.

The contractors engaged to construct Supply System 3 and Supply System 4 were announced in May with construction to begin in June 2008 and completion planned for late 2009.

In April, GWMWater announced the 2008 winter water supply arrangements for areas supplied from the Waranga channel system.

• This year’s 26,000 ML Waranga entitlement will be used to supply dams in the area traditionally serviced by the Waranga system on the basis of one dam per 400 hectare of farm enterprise.
• This includes rural customers in the northern most area of Supply System 2 who will not receive a piped supply until late 2008.
• Dams will not be filled on farms in the process of connecting to Supply System 5 of the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline.

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Southern Rural Water

Macalister Irrigation District (MID)

At 31 May, Lake Glenmaggie, the principal source of water for the MID, was at 52.7% of capacity. 

The irrigation season closed on 15 May at an allocation of at 200% for all irrigators within the MID, and for diverters on the Thomson River, Macalister River and Rainbow Creek.  The allocation is in addition to the 46,000 ML (equivalent to 32% of water right volume) delivered during the off-quota period up to 20 November 2007.

Latrobe System

Water availability on the Latrobe system decreased throughout May with storage levels in Blue Rock Lake falling 1.4% to 69.9% of capacity.  This level is well above that of the same time last year. The irrigation share of Blue Rock was just 17.3% because it was heavily drawn down last season.

SRW licence holders downstream on the Latrobe and Tanjil Rivers could pump up to their licensed volume subject to the availability of unregulated river flows (which normally contribute some 70% of entitlements). 

Werribee Basin (Bacchus Marsh and Werribee Irrigation District)

SRW’s share of the Werribee basin was approximately 6.7% of capacity at the end of May.

The seasonal allocation remained at just 8% of water right and licensed volume for the Werribee and Bacchus Marsh irrigation districts in May.

SRW continued to implement its Western Irrigation Contingency Plan which included:

• pumping dead storage from Pykes Creek reservoir;
• transferring 2,000 ML of water from SRW’s Macalister Irrigation District drought reserve in the Thomson Reservoir to Werribee and Bacchus Marsh; and
• extending Government approval to make 800 ML of water available to irrigators from the unallocated share of Lake Merrimu.

Irrigators in the Werribee area continue to participate in the recycling scheme.  This continues to be of major benefit to participating growers in the area (approaching 90% of the growers).

The ban on access to groundwater within the Deutgam Groundwater Management Area remains in place.  SRW continues to monitor levels in the aquifer. Access to the resource will resume when the risk of salt water intrusion has diminished.

Maribyrnong Basin

The storage volume in Rosslynne Reservoir fell to 3.4% of capacity.  With inflows well below average, SRW diverters face another season of low, possibly zero, allocations.

There have been no irrigation releases this season and the allocation remains at 0% of licensed volume.

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