AFTER more than five years and hundreds of community consultation meetings, the Murray Darling Basin Plan has become law.
But the Victorian Government and many stakeholders reserved their judgement until detail surfaces on how infrastructure works and buybacks will deliver the amount, and at what cost.Water Minister Tony Burke announced this afternoon he had signed off on the plan that would return 2750 billion litres of water to the environment by 2019.
The plan states up to $10 billion will be spent on buy backs of water entitlements from farmers and more efficient irrigation infrastructure, pumping and piping projects on wetlands and floodplains.
A further $1.8 billion will meet South Australia's demands for an extra 450GL to be delivered through future engineering works.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Minister Burke said Australia had been waiting for the reform for more than a century.
An agreement with state governments on how the plan will be put in place is now set to be signed ahead of a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments next month.''Today is the day Australia decided to restore the Murray-Darling to health.''
For more on this story, see Friday's edition of The Guardian (23/11/12).
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