Environment groups are calling for the almost $600m in savings from abandoning the Dungowan Dam project to be redirected toward the final stage of the Murray-Darling Basin plan, including more water buybacks to ensure the full plan is completed.
As the plan’s assessment date of June 2024 draws closer, environment groups are becoming increasingly concerned about the states’ failures to deliver on moves designed to deliver water for the environment via efficiency projects.
Of particular concern is the final 450GL of extra water that South Australia demanded as its price of signing on to the plan a decade ago.
This water for environmental flows was due to be retrieved by on- and off-farm water efficiency projects, such as covering canals, but this proved an expensive way to retrieve water and difficult to implement, with just 5% of the target achieved after nearly 10 years.
The Albanese government committed $146.8m in Tuesday’s budget towards their election promise to complete the Murray-Darling Basin plan, but this is mainly for scientific studies and work to assess progress.
Australia’s peak conservation groups covering every basin state said more funding will be needed to reach basin plan targets and restore the rivers to health after a decade of delay – and they want water buybacks from farmers, not promises of projects.
Farmers oppose buybacks because they say they reduce agricultural activity and hurt communities.
“Under the Coalition, we lost years and billions of dollars on bloated handouts and dodgy offset schemes. Now water’s more expensive, the Albanese government needs to allocate more money for water recovery,” Tyler Rotche, Environment Victoria’s healthy rivers campaigner, said.
“The Albanese government has some leftover funding. The bulk of the $1.575bn to recover 450bn litres went unspent while the Murray-Darling faced mass fish kills and toxic blackwater events.”
“The government needs to get the most water for the funds already set aside. Purchasing water from willing sellers is the most reliable option. It’s by far the most straightforward, aboveboard and cost-effective method on the table.”
Environment Victoria, Nature Conservation Council New South Wales, Queensland Conservation Council and the Conservation Council of SA said additional funding was needed and it should be used to buy water from willing sellers rather than projects as this was cheaper and more effective.
“While the decision not to fund the dud Dungowan Dam near Tamworth is applauded, the money saved should have been repurposed for water purchases,” Jacqui Mumford, the CEO of the Nature Conservation Council NSW, said.
“The solution is simple. We need stronger laws to stop over-extraction, purchase more environmental water, and invest in regional communities,” she said
Plans for a new Dungowan Dam near Tamworth were all but buried last October when the budget review revealed it had been deferred following a very unfavourable assessment from Infrastructure Australia.
Tuesday’s budget formally axed it. The NSW water minister, Rose Jackson, announced on Wednesday that NSW would also abandon the project.
The move will save NSW taxpayers $632m and would enable the state government to look at more affordable and effective water security options for the region.
“We know there is a major water security issue in this region and we are committed to addressing it but at the end of the day the numbers didn’t stack up,” Jackson said.
In the coming weeks, the NSW government will be releasing the final Namoi water strategy, which will outline the path forward and plan to improve water security in the region.
“It is going to take more than just a new dam to solve the water security issues for Tamworth. It is why I am now receiving briefings from my department on a range of infrastructure and non-infrastructure options that could be implemented within a shorter timeframe,” Jackson said.
The Dungowan Dam project had been championed by the former National party leader Barnaby Joyce, in whose electorate it is located, as a water security measure for nearby Tamworth, which came close to running out of water during the drought.
But advisers, including the Productivity Commission, declared it a flawed project that was about delivering more water for agriculture, when other cheaper options could boost the town water supply.
