Water shares sold off

WEEKLY TIMES

WATER shares in the northern Victorian irrigation region have dropped by a third, or 500 gigalitres, in the past five years.

Another 100 gigalitres could leave the system in the next few years.

Goulburn Murray Water managing director Gavin Hanlon said the environmental water holder had snapped up much of the 500 gigalitres. Superannuation companies and farmers had also bought a large slice.

"Some people might have bought up the water and are trading it on the temporary market," he said.

A further 100 gigalitres could leave northern Victoria through the proposed Murray Darling Basin Plan.

"The harsh reality for us is there could be another 100GL to go depending on the Basin Plan."

He said GM Water was concerned some systems might become unviable if the Commonwealth bought large volumes of water.

"Our discussions would move from irrigation upgrades and backbone connection to looking at the viability of whole districts or slabs of districts," he said.

Victorian Farmers Federation water council spokesman Richard Anderson (pictured) also said there were concerns for some districts' viability if the Basin Plan sought to recover 3200 gigalitres for the environment. Mr Hanlon said the Goulburn Murray irrigation region was facing unprecedented change via government buy-ups of water entitlements and large-scale infrastructure upgrades.

He said the 6000km of channels would be rationalised to about 3500km under the GM Water connections program. But he said the loss of water was not related to the program.

"When we do on-farm works there are efficiency gains and farmers tend to find other ways to use the water, such as selling it on the temporary market," Mr Hanlon said. He said GM Water's tariff structure would be redesigned to keep costs low for the remaining farmers.

"About 45 per cent of our customers use 8 per cent of the water. There's a lot of hobby farms or smaller high-value horticulture, so we need to redesign our tariff structure to reflect that."