Pressure on Victoria’s biggest rural water corporation, Goulburn Murray Water is escalating amid claims of inconsistent water supply and ongoing meter issues.
Durham Ox livestock and crop producer Chris Harrison said, in one instance, water flow was reversed back into a GMW channel.
Another time, two MagFlow meters on opposite sides of an irrigation channel were found to be delivering vastly different flow rates.
However, Mr Harrison said the delivery volume ordered for both was the same.
“One was performing relatively okay, if not perfectly – the other was oscillating between a flow of two and 20ML a day,” Mr Harrison said.
He said water for both meters was ordered at the same flow rate.
The MagFlow meter was considered to be the biggest and best, but Mr Harrison said it was clear one of them could not be measuring accurately, because water supply went up and down so dramatically.
“I know it’s not the flow of the channel, one of them is going all right, the other one is going nuts.”
Mr Harrison said to solve the problem, GMW had to send technicians to manually override individual meters, which were usually controlled automatically, out of Tatura.
“The government spent $2billion on this system and it’s not working,
“GMW could be facing a class action given the promises behind the troubled Connections Modernisation Project, which have now failed. It was a fundamental promise, no-one would be worse off.”
Mr Harrison said since Modernisation, the maximum amount of water the Loddon Valley could receive had fallen from 1900ML a day to 1600ML.
“It might not sound much, but when you have crops under stress, five days and you have significant yield loss, they have to be watered in a certain period of time.
“Then it comes down to who gets it, and who doesn’t.
“We have seen it year after year, they can’t get the volume of water down the channels.”
Ongoing issues
Read more: Irrigators question metering accuracy
Mr Harrison said it was a long-term problem – he had to abandon a $20,000 lucerne crop several years ago,because the water supply was so bad.
This season, the outlets were watering oats, which could be used for high value hay or grain.
“It affects me because I never know when to change a bay, or regulate it,” he said.
“This is not what the promise was - the promise was for a better system and it’s worse.”
Pyramid Hill irrigators Rob Moon and Chris Leed said they both had issues with erratic supply this season.
But Mr Moon said while his MagFlow meter was one of the first installed, about five years ago, it was only this year that problems started.
“We had registered flows on the place of -11ML to plus 40ML, out of an outlet that has the capacity of 14-15ML,” Mr Moon said.
“I’ve used it for four or five years and there’s never been a variation like that.
“I have no confidence in it, especially when you look at a flow rate of 40ML a day going out of a meter you know can only do a maximum of 20ML.”
Mr Moon said he believed severe climatic conditions in the area were taking their toll on the electronics of the meters.
“When you have electronics in minus two degrees to plus 40 during the day, over 12 months of the year, invariably they have to break down.”
Pool regulators
Chris Leed, Pyramid Hill, said he believed the pool regulator had been installed incorrectly, which meant he couldn’t get water onto his wheat and barley paddocks quickly enough.
The regulators act as ‘dam’ to build up enough water in the channel, for release to irrigators.
“For my outlets, I need 20centimetres of head to go through, to do 20ML a day,” he said.
But he said the new meter and regulator, which governs the meter, was set too low.
“It’s been incorrectly surveyed,” Mr Leed said.
“GMW Connections states a supply level of 93.60m, but it’s really 93.44m (meausred from sea level).
“I got a man in with a GPS survey staff and measured off the datum peg to find the error.”
He said G-MW then claimed it was only nine centimetres too low.
“The technician said he didn't have the correct equipment and only an old chart of what the survey heights were, so used a ruler to measure the distance,” Mr Leed said.
“I want the new infrastructure correctly surveyed, as each time I order water they have to (manually) override the system to raise the level.”
He said he’d been told 70 per cent of all the new pool regulators had not been surveyed properly.
“I have a high paddock and need every bit of command I can get to irrigate it,” Mr Leed said.
The command of a water source is the extent of area, which can be reliably irrigated from the irrigation channel.
Mr Leed said he had asked for the area to be professionally surveyed by an independent, accredited technician.
He said because of unreliable flows, he was using more water.
“At $300/ML plus, it’s an expensive hobby,” he said.
“I don’t want water laying around on the paddock any longer than I have to, I want a high flow, to push it on quickly,” he said.
“I don’t want to stress the crop any longer than I have to with water inundation.”
GMW declined to comment on these cases.
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.
