IRRIGATOR allocations have been increased from 34 per cent to 41pc as a result of improved inflows in the River Murray system and the Mount Lofty Ranges.
River Murray Minister Paul Caica said South Australia would now receive a minimum of 1719 gigalitres during 2010-11 under a “worst case” scenario and increased allocations by 7pc.
“The forecast River Murray system inflows for August 2010 have improved significantly from 480gL to 1290gL,’’ he said.
“While there has been good rainfall over much of the southern Murray Darling Basin and inflows have improved, about 720gL of this inflow was made up of flows from the tributaries owned by New South Wales and Victoria.
“Under the MDB Agreement and current water sharing arrangements, SA is not entitled to a share of the inflows to these tributaries. As a result of these tributary inflows, NSW and Victoria have more water available for allocation than SA.”
This time last year allocations were 10pc.
Mr Caica said with the 40gL improvement from the shared resource and recent improvement of inflows into the Mount Lofty Ranges, a total of 77gL is available to SA to share between irrigation, critical human needs and the environment.
Included in the 1719gL minimum currently available to SA is an estimated 170gL to enable irrigators to access 100pc of their carry-over water since July 1, 2010.
This equates to 26pc of the total water that could be allocated to irrigators.
Mr Caica said while he recognised that not all irrigators have carryover water, overall irrigators now
have access to 436 GL from the total water currently available to South Australia for allocation.
Mr Caica said SA had also secured the 201gL required for critical human needs in 2011-12 which is in addition to the 201gL of water already secured for 2010-11 critical human needs.
“The full 170gL committed to the 2010-11 Lower Lakes Environmental Reserve is also secured and has already been delivered to Lake Alexandrina,’’ he said.
“A further 60 GL has been accumulated for other environmental reserves for purposes such as providing more water to Lake Albert to mitigate the risk of acidification.
“SA will also receive an additional 96gL for additional dilution flows, which is extra water provided to SA to mitigate salinity when storage levels in upstream storages
surpass certain levels.
“Additional dilution flows cannot be allocated but will flow through to the Lower Lakes. This 96gL has increased the total volume of additional dilution flows in 2010-11 to 276gL.”
River Murray storages remained low in comparison to the long-term average, but Mr Caica said the seasonal outlook for water availability was better than the past three years.
The current volume in Hume, Dartmouth, Menindee Lakes and Lake Victoria is 5087gL (54pc capacity). This volume includes a large amount of water for private carry-over and critical human water needs for all southern Basin states.
Although this is higher than at the same time last year (2224gL, 24pc) it is well below the long-term average for this time of year (7130gL, 76pc).
* Details: www.mdba.gov.au
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