Irrigators group backs Commonwealth buy-back plan

Original story by Gavin Coote, ABC News

A local irrigators’ group has come out in support of a buy-back scheme on the Murray-Darling Basin.

Yesterday the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder announced it would temporarily sell water in the Gwydir valley in northern NSW.

This would mean some of the Commonwealth’s annual allocations of water will be available for sale, a decision which has been backed by the NSW Irrigators Council and the Murray Darling Basin Authority.

But the sale’s angered environmentalists, and Greens Environment spokeswoman, Lee Rhiannon, says the policy will come at the cost of the environment.

Citrus grower and South West Water Users chairman Alan White says while the sale won’t impact those outside the Gwydir, it’s a step in the right direction.

“It’s a good decision, they haven’t got any local use for the water [in the Gwydir], it’d be criminal if they wasted it,” he said.

“Why not sell it and use the proceeds for other environmental water purposes either in the Gwydir or someone else in the valley?”

Irrigator recalls ‘successful’ water trading system on Murray

Mr White says the “naive” opposition expressed by some environmentalists fails to recognise how Australian wetlands run their natural course.

“The Murray Wetlands Group is a very good example of where this system’s worked well in the Murray previously,” he said.

“A long time ago before this environmental watering regime became popular they started doing a lot of good work, and they acquired some water licences as a consequence of some water savings at Moira Lake, which is on the Murray River.

“Some years it simply didn’t make sense for them to use the water in Moira Lake, they didn’t have another use for it. If they didn’t have a use for it, they would routinely sell the water, bank the proceeds and spend money to fix things the next year.

Mr White describes the idea of a market-based approach as “an eminently logical, sensible system”.

“The reaction against it from some environmental groups really just displays absolute ignorance of how wetland ecosystems operate in Australia,” he said.

Mr White says it’s a natural cycle for rivers to go through a drying phase following wet periods.

The New South Wales Irrigators’ Council says the benefits of a water sale could potentially spread beyond the Gwydir valley.

Economic policy analyst Stephanie Schulte says the Commonwealth will be able to buy water in other parts of the Murray Darling with the money raised from its Gwydir sale.

She says this will be of large benefit to irrigators in the areas affected.

“The sale of environmental water in the Gwydir will make further allocation available in that particular valley,” she said.

“But of course the proceeds from that transaction will then be used for purchases of water somewhere else in the basin so it could have impacts for other water users in other parts of the basin as well.”