Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville has said was confident the troubled $2billion Connections irrigation modernisation would be completed on budget and on time – despite full water savings being expected 12 months before it was due to be finished.
Ms Neville told the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) Rochester water forum the Commonwealth had agreed to extend the project completion date by two years, to 2020 – but wanted full water savings delivered a year before that.
“Victoria is taking a bit of a risk, but on all the advice I have got I believe we can absolutely deliver by that June 2019,” Ms Neville said.
She said she would receive an update on the roll-out, every three months, to ensure it remained on track.
“We can deliver this project within the budget, we can deliver the water savings we are required to deliver to the Commonwealth,” Ms Neville said.
“We believe we can absolutely achieve and deliver those water savings and that’s probably conservative, there is very conservative modelling that has gone into to determining our ability to do that.
“I did have a bit of push back, with the Commonwealth, as to whether we had to deliver those water savings by 2019 – because the physical works won’t be completed until 2020.”
The Minister said the project would deliver the remaining 204 gigalitres, out of 429GL required by the Commonwealth, and repeated $350million remained in uncommited funds to complete Connections.
Ms Neville said it was also hoped to significantly reduce the amount of time, taken to reach agreements on upgrades.
“We want to get it down to 160 days, or two to three months – it has taken years, before.
“We are going to have to do that, if we are going to deliver this on time,” she said.
Landholders would be able to go online, to a portal showing when their channels would be upgraded and what works would be done.
Of the 950km of uncommitted channels, 61 per cent would be retained and modernised, 11pc of open channels would be rationalised and repaired with GMW shared connection pipelines.
Ms Neville said of the 4378 in uncommitted works, 55 per cent would be replaced with new meters and 43pc rationalised without replacement.
That meant modernising all but five per cent of uncommitted channel and two per cent of outlets in uncommitted works.
VFF water council chairman Richard Anderson said the real challenge was to roll the project out on time and properly engage with customers, many of whom were frustrated with the time taken to complete it.
“We need to make sure this project goes smoothly, especially that engagement with the customer base,” Mr Anderson said.
“Our position throughout this process has been that the future of the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District must be considered first and foremost, not only the need to deliver water efficiency savings,” Mr Anderson said.
“We expect, as a minimum, that all commercial irrigators will get a modernised outlet and channel automation.”
Durham Ox mixed farmer Murray Haw said he was quietly confident and hopeful this time things could be resolved.
“The proof of the pudding will be in the eating,” Mr Haw said.
“But I think (Project Director) Frank Fisseler may be able to achieve his aims.”
