A DEADLINE has been extended to February 24 on public feedback, to gather views on plans to amend the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
The proposed changes include a recommendation to reduce the water recovery target in the northern basin by 70 gigalitres, an increase to the amount of groundwater to be extracted from three groundwater areas and other practical improvements to the Basin Plan, the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) says.
MDBA CEO Phillip Glyde said people were encouraged to use the extra two weeks on the feedback deadline to complete a submission.
He said stakeholders had asked for the extension so they could have more time to analyse the Authority’s reports and make suggestions on the changes.
“We are considering submissions as they are received so the extension should not affect the proposed amendment process timeframe,” he said.
The MDBA says it has held information sessions about the proposed changes in towns across the Basin, to explain the amendments and to discuss broader Basin Plan issues.
Mr Glyde said it had been great to travel and meet with community members over the past few months to discuss the amendments and hear their perspectives.
“Our website has information about the proposed amendments,” he said.
“If people have further questions about what we have proposed they can contact us by email and phone.”
The MDBA said submissions were encouraged to put forward new information that may not have been considered during the three-year northern basin review or ground water reviews which had instigated the proposed amendments.
The MDBA will use the information to determine if the proposed amendments should be recommended to the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce.
In a recent interview, Mr Glyde said the Authority’s proposed amendment to lower the northern system’s “number” from 390GLs to 320GLs was based on an understanding that governments introduced complementary measures or “non-flow measures”.
He said those measures included; better protection of environmental water; introduction of infrastructure like fish ladders; cold water pollution curtains; and being more imaginative and smarter about “how we acquire water”.
He said it was better to achieve the water reductions that must come from farming communities through investment in infrastructure projects, rather than water buybacks.
“Maybe we should be buying slices of entitlements; not the whole entitlement,” he said.
Mr Glyde said the complementary measures required the commonwealth, NSW, and QLD governments to make commitments on projects that improve water-use efficiency and in particular, water that must be returned to the environment.
He said essentially nobody involved in the review process - including farming groups - had publicly stated that 320GLs was “the right number” for the northern Basin.
He said he understood most irrigation industries and irrigation dependent communities would have preferred the MDBA to remain on 278GLs.
But the Authority’s environmental analysis shows that by moving up from 278GLs to 320GLs, “we get quite a significant increase in environmental outcomes but after 320GLs it tends to flat-line”, he said.
“We tested a scenario with 415GLs and we even did an internal test at 500GLs where you don’t get much greater environmental benefit but you get a very significant increase in economic costs,” he said.
“Our job is to try and hit that triple bottom line balanced outcome and we think the 320GLs is better balanced than the 390GLs, based on this new information.”
