 |
| https://www.mdba.gov.au/importance-murray-darling-basin/where-basin |
The State of New South Wales is currently not in drought. However, its rivers often have highly variable water flows so it was not surprising to find the morning of Tuesday 13 July 2021 revealing that WaterNSW State Overview real time data record showed that 14 of the state's rivers were flowing at less than 20%. While 15 of the state's principal dams registered volume levels at between 31.4% and 95.9% of capacity, with another 3 registering over 100% of recommended capacity.
Some of those rivers and dams fall within Murray Darling Basin boundaries.
Apparently - even in time of relative water plenty - healthy rivers, environmental water flows and intergenerational equity are not part of the business plan for many of the irrigators growing cotton, almonds, rice, fruit, vegetables, grape vines and other food & pasture crops - how else does one explain this?
The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July 2021:
Nearly half of the biggest irrigators in NSW have made no effort to install meters that comply with new water laws more than six months after they became mandatory, an audit has found.
The NSW Natural Resources Access Regulator found that 45 per cent of large pumps that draw from rivers and creeks were not using compliant meters to measure how much water was taken, contrary to new laws designed to prevent water theft.
Only 23 per cent were fully compliant with a further third on their way to compliance based on evidence provided by way of invoices, product orders and emails confirming validation appointments.
NRAR’s chief regulatory officer Grant Barnes said there had been “a positive shift” in compliance rates since its desktop audit in April, which found two-thirds of irrigators were non-compliant, but there was still more work to be done with those water users who had neither installed the meters nor made an effort to do so.
“For us, this is about ensuring those water users who have done the right thing and have complied with the regulations get a fair go, and so these results will be disappointing to those people,” Mr Barnes said. “[Compliance] is also important to those who recognise the importance of a social licence for irrigators.”
Individuals who have shown no effort to comply face fines of up to $750 and irrigation companies face $1500 fines.
“The pumps in question here are gigantic, half-meter diameter straws that have the capacity to suck the lifeblood out of our rivers.”
Independent MP Justin Field
The meters were a central recommendation from the 2017 Murray Darling Basin Compliance Review, which found irrigator compliance in NSW and Queensland was “bedevilled by patchy metering, the challenges of measuring unmetered take and the lack of real-time, accurate water accounts”…...
Read the full article here.
No comments:
Post a Comment