Govt to buyback 50GL of water across these 7 catchments

Under questioning in senate estimates, Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) staff revealed the decision was made at the recent Ministerial Council meeting of basin state Water Ministers.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has multiple sets of water recovery targets. The 2075GL Bridging The Gap target is agonisingly close to being ticked off, with just 46GL remaining, while only 3GL is needed to complete the groundwater target.

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"All ministers agreed in the last month's Ministerial Council meeting that we would, as a priority, secure that water and do so through strategic purchases," DCCEEW deputy secretary Lyn O'Connell said.

"It's quite specific, it's specific to catchments and it's specific to meeting the Bridging The Gap outstanding amount of 46GL of surface water and 3GL of groundwater."

The buybacks will be focused on the seven catchments that have fall short of their Bridging The Gap target, including Condamine-Balonne (14GL), NSW Murray (10GL), Namoi (9.5GL), NSW Border Rivers (5.1GL), ACT (4.9GL), Barwon-Darling (1.6GL) and Lachlan (0.9GL).

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The Condomine Alluvium will also have 3.2GL of groundwater bought.

The department officials n oted the figures were estimates, particularly in NSW valleys where the state government was yet to submit its Water Resource Plans.

Further details are expected to be announced in February, when basin Water Ministers will meet to discuss progress on the MDBP.

Coalition water spokesperson Perin Davey said the news would send shivers through the impacted communities of those seven valleys.

"When the Nationals were in government with the Liberals, we were very cognisant of the damage buybacks had done to regional communities and made water recovery about outcomes, even for the bridging the gap amount," Senator Davey said.

"We ruled out buybacks and concentrated on on-and-off farm infrastructure which could improve water efficiency outcomes whilst returning water to the environment.

"Buybacks don't impact the people selling water, what they do is damage those who want to remain in agriculture by removing not only water for production, but the ability to increase production using less water, which then has a flow on effect for all the industries reliant on agriculture.

"In many Basin communities just about every job and business in town can be linked back to the economic base of irrigated agriculture."