Poor design and substandard irrigation piping is continuing to cost farmers in an area from Cohuna to Boort hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs, lost production and wasted water.
The piping was installed as part of the troubled $2 billion Connections program.
About 25 farmers are believed to be affected by what they said was a failure to design the on-farm systems properly coupled with poor quality flood poly piping, which continually cracked and leaked.
Col and Jodie Hay, who have a 400 cow dairy farm near Cohuna, estimated remediation of their system would cost more than $300,000.
Ms Hay said the system had been plagued with problems, since it was installed six years ago.
“Forever we will have a compromised system, and forever we will have a devalued farm, because it’s publicly known we have a faulty pipeline system,” Ms Hay said.
A senior Goulburn-Murray Water (GMW) executive had told her he had had raised concerns with his engineers about the systems they were approving. ‘He said ‘they are way too simplistic in their design’ and they would eventually fail,” Ms Hay.
“Our initial pipeline plan, designed and approved by an engineer assigned to us by GMW, had no air valves, no pump design, at all.
“It just has a pump site, with no manual as to how to start and stop it, no instructions, no commissioning. It was just a locality map, with no design.”
But she said GMW had changed its procedures, as a result of the design faults.
Mr Hay said in a 300 metre stretch of pipe, there had been 35-40 leaks. The system was checked by two groups of independent assessors.
“All their reports came back that the lack of air valves would cause negative pressure, therefore cause the pipe to suck in, therefore changing its shape, therefore causing splits,” Mr Hay said. “And that’s exactly what is happening.”
While he said he had signed an indemnity, acknowledging GMW had no responsibility for the problems, the organisation should now pay for remediation.
Mr Hay said when the system was working, it was magnificent – “I want to stress that.
“But there is nothing more stressful, on a 40 degree day, when you find a hole in the pipe and you have got crops reliant on it and you have to pull up the pump for three days.”
