The NSW Irrigators' Council is urging the state government to rule out what it says are 'bad-faith' aspects of its proposed landholder negotiation framework to manage constraints and avoid further buybacks.
The NSW government's Reconnecting River Country Program seeks to deliver environmental water to wetlands and floodplains by relaxing constraints to allow minor inundation of private land.
"The program requires more than 4000 landowners in the southern NSW Murray-Darling Basin to agree to flood easements on their properties," NSWIC chief executive Claire Miller said.
Ms Miller said there was still a threat of compulsory acquisition, flagged in the Landholder Negotiation Framework, which the council believed was a 'very bad faith' move.
"Instead of spending more time, in coming up with a framework on how they are going to consult, they should actually just get out on ground and start talking to landholders about their actual issues.
"This is just more delay and the framework they are proposing here is seen by many people as coercive."
She urged the NSW government to 'genuinely work' with communities to rebuild trust, be patient and show respect for concerns landholders may have.
"We have a community, which has been at the frontline of the adverse impacts of the Basin Plan, socio-economically and environmentally - you see a lot of damage in the lower Goulburn River and through the Barmah Choke.
"They don't trust the government, they are pretty bruised, so it's really important they (the government) are able to get out and talk to people."
Southern Riverina irrigator John Lolicato said the Reconnecting River Country program was the NSW Department of Planning and Environment attempt to rebadge the original Constraint Management Strategy that failed
"The RRC is their next attempt to ram home the unrealistic flow targets of the 2012 Basin Plan," Mr Lolicato said.
The draft landholder negotiation framework indicated the government was prepared to draw on considerable legislative powers to exclude its liability over the release of environmental water and the possibility of compulsory land acquisition.
It also allowed for the possibility of easements through farmland to achieve flow and inundation targets.
"The most concerning part of the process is the use of divide and conquer tactics of affected landholders by the use of winners and losers - some landholders get million dollar bridges or other infrastructure while others may get offered a 'peanut' (once of) for the loss of productive land.
"The LNF will take away negotiating time, power and control from a relative small number of impacted individuals and allow others that are not affected by the project to have a controlling say."
As 65 per cent of the Wakool region was originally a floodplain, there was general concern that works were planned to start upstream to relax constraints without fully understanding the implications to downstream Landholders and infrastructure.
"To receive our communities' acceptance of the projects there is an urgent need to properly engage and address the downstream issues, such as what are the proposed increased flows, what is the expected duration, what will be the extent, what is the increased risk of a hybrid event on top of an environmental flow and what are the planned mitigation measures to overcome or address third party impacts."
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The NSW government has said the RCC aimed to achieve a balance of economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes across the southern part of the state by improving wetland and floodplain connectivity.
The program focuses on relaxing, or removing, some of the constraints or physical barriers that have an impact on delivering water for the environment in the southern-connected Murray-Darling Basin.
That includes:
- Hume to Yarrawonga (Murray River)
- Yarrawonga to Wakool (Murray River)
- Murrumbidgee River.
A constraint is any physical, policy or operational barrier limiting the flow of water in river systems.
Ms Miller said the council supported the relaxation of constraints, as it reduced the need for more buybacks.
"Most irrigators are not affected by constraints relaxation, personally, but they do get the benefit of reducing the risk of more buybacks."
It was not right for landholders affected by constraints relaxation, most of whom were not irrigators, to feel as they were being 'railroaded' into agreements affecting their properties, farms, businesses, livestock and infrastructure.
Ms Miller said the government was talking about 'minor inundation.
"Every landholder would rightly want to know what exactly does that mean - how often, what kind of warning am I going to get, what happens if any infrastructure on my property gets damaged?
"These are all really relevant things that every landholder would want to know and they really need to work through that, without any sense of being coerced."
Ms Miller said it ignored what was happening on the Victorian side of the border.
"The minister there has made it abundantly clear the government will not be carrying out compulsory acquisition of flood easements and not be deliberately inundating anyone's land, without an agreement."
It would require patience, as it took eight years to negotiate with 103 landholders between the Hume Dam and Yarrawonga.
"Not all of it's entirely finished, it's not completely resolved, but that's how long it takes because you just have to work through with the landholders.
"It takes as long as it takes, but the end result is good."
In the meantime, there were many things governments could focus upon to improve environmental outcomes.
They included carp and feral land animal eradication and cold water pollution.
"These are all things that will have very real and demonstrable environmental benefits, while you are working through the constraints issues."
The NSW government has been contacted for comment.