The Victorian Famers Federation and Murray River councils have expressed alarm at the Victorian state government's plans to pause four of its nine Murray-Darling Basin Plan Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism projects.
SDLAMs allow for environmental outcomes to be reached with less water, using engineering to transfer water to floodplains and wetlands.
Victoria has signed up to nine SDLAMs under the Victorian Murray Floodplain Restoration Project.
Water Minister Harriet Shing has argued four of the Victorian projects, which would return a total of about 60 gigalitres to the system, would not be complete by the June 2024 funding deadline.
That would mean the federal government would not fund the projects at Guttrum Benwell, Gunbower, Lindsay and Walpolla Islands.
READ MORE: Basin plan poised to fall up to 315GL short
VFF Water Council chair Andrew Leahy said the delays raised the prospect of further water buybacks.
"We know that buybacks kill rural communities, drive up the price of water, reduce regional jobs and ultimately drive up the price of food and cost of living," Mr Leahy said.
"The minister is openly walking away from the Plan's SDLAM offset projects that would provide real environmental outcomes and benefits to regional communities with minimal impacts on farmers.
Local rural stores, fencing contractors, veterinarians, machinery suppliers, machinery technicians, earthmoving contractors, and even the local teacher teach children from farming families, he said.
It's believed the state government has argued the delays in completing the projects have been caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of access due to flooding and the fact extensive cultural heritage surveys had taken longer than expected.
"These projects deliver outcomes for the environment and rural communities," Mr Leahy said.
"[Prime Minister] Albanese and his Water Minister Tanya Plibersek need to understand that delivering them requires financial resources, hard work and time.
"The commonwealth government needs to provide the resources and time."
At the last Water Minister's council meeting, Ms Shing sought a two-year extension to basin plan deadlines of June 30, 2024, saying it would allow Victoria to meet 98 per cent of its targets.
Goulburn-Murray Water's Central Goulburn committee chair Peter Hacon said the decision was "very concerning."
"We'd be looking for more explanation as to why and what's going on, to keep us up to speed," Mr Hacon said.
"We'd like more details on it."
The Murray River Group of Councils said the organisation was also seeking an extension to the deadline, also raising concerns about the prospect of future buybacks.
"If the deadline is not extended, then these projects could fail and then the commonwealth will be forced to buy back the equivalent water," it said in a recently released position paper.
"Should this happen, there will be the perverse outcome of water flowing down the river (doing damage to banks) past dead and dying red gums and dry wetlands," the paper said.
The MRGC said completion of the SDLAMs was vital.
"Our communities are alarmed at the prospect of commonwealth government buy backs particularly if they aim to recover significant volumes of water," the position paper said.
"Northern Victoria's irrigation districts have contributed 803.3GL, of predominantly high security water entitlement, to meet the Basin Plan's environmental water recovery targets.
"This exceeds the Basin Plan water recovery target for these catchments of 786.1GL."
The councils argued completion of the Victorian SDLAM projects was vital to the health of the floodplains.
"MRGC believes it is more important to achieve environmental outcomes than to pursue arbitrary deadlines and targets set over a decade ago," the councils said.
"MRGC supports efforts by the Victorian government to meet its Basin Plan Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism (SDLAM) commitments.
"They are vital because without the pumps and regulators they will install, it is not possible to get water to the floodplain for the right duration of time (without big floods that will flood towns, private land etc).
"It is simply not possible to water these ecosystems without the works of the SDLAM projects."
Meanwhile, water buybacks were blamed for 3261 full time equivalent job losses across the economies of 40 southern Murray-Darling Basin communities, according to Murray-Darling Basin Authority modelling released by the NSW Irrigators' Council.
"The MDBA's own socioeconomic modelling shows less water for farmers means fewer jobs in regional economies," said NSWIC chief executive Claire Miller.
The collated data, published in a new report by the NSWIC, shows that 3261, or 30pc of the net 10,801.5 FTE jobs lost from 2001 to 2016 were directly attributed to water recovery for the environment through direct and indirect buybacks.
Across the southern Basin States, 648 lost jobs (21pc of FTE jobs losses) in the profiled NSW communities profiled were attributed to water recovery, 1684 (30pc) in northern Victoria and 929 (45pc) in South Australia, mostly in its Riverland horticultural centres.
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Andrew Miller
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
I'm a general reporter with Stock & Land, with a special interest in irrigation issues. I completed my cadetship, with the Age, in 1980. Over my career, I've worked for ABC radio news (Mt Isa, Qld) and at provincial and suburban newspapers.
