A western New South Wales water efficiency project has achieved water savings of more than 80 per cent by swapping open channels for pipelines, but not everyone is rushing to copy its success.
Gunbar Water, north of Hay, covers an area of about 300,000 hectares and delivers stock and domestic water to graziers through close to 700 kilometres of pipelines.
Completed in 2018, the pipeline was funded through a Murrumbidgee Irrigation project, as part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan's Private Irrigation Infrastructure Operators Program (PIIOP).
But today, the federal government's current Off-Farm Efficiency program is one of the plan's most problematic with only 2GL recovered of a 450GL target.
Gunbar Water chairwoman Stacey Lugsdin said the project had been a good news story for the basin plan.
"This has been the best thing for our district. It has made life and production so much easier," Ms Lugsdin said.
She said before the system was piped, evaporation and seepage from open channels saw losses of 10,000 megalitres each watering.
"We had an allocation of 2,000ML but it took 12,000ML to deliver it," she said.
The project was given $46 million in funding and saw 9,000ML in water savings transferred to the federal government.
Ms Lugsdin said farmers also saw production benefits, with water quality and security improved.
"It's actually drought-proofed our farms for water," she said.
Pipeline overcame initial opposition from some farmers
The project initially faced strong opposition from a small group of farmers who formed the Alternative Supply Group.
Booligal grazier Matt Ireson was a member of the group and said they had wanted more control of their on-farm water delivery, in particular being able to retain their existing ground tanks.
"The design of Gunbar Water, the volume of water and the pressure, doesn't allow for the ground tanks to be maintained," he said.
Mr Ireson said they were given a certain time period to sign up for the pipeline in order to access government funds for the related on-farm infrastructure.
"There was a lack of transparency, and it has caused division among landholders," he said.
Mr Ireson acknowledged that water quality had been improved but said water was more expensive and needed to be monitored continuously.
Gunbar Water is now looking into a second water efficiency project under the basin plan, which would include expanding on the current pipe network.
Oldest irrigation district one of the most modern
The nearby Hay Private Irrigation District is the oldest in NSW but it is now one of the most modern.
District manager James Bisset said funding under the basin plan saw pipelines replace open channels for irrigation, stock, and domestic water.
"Now it's fully automated, they have access 24/7 and can press a button from anywhere in the world and their outlets will start and record their delivery," Mr Bisset said.
"It's probably one of the leading automated irrigation districts in Australia today."
He said up to 900ML of water was lost through delivery each year with open channels, but the district now used on average around 140ML a year.
The pipe system had expanded cropping opportunities for small-block farmers around the town of Hay, with growers given more control over when water was delivered.
Why isn't all water delivered in pipes?
Despite the significant water savings and production benefits seen by these projects, not everyone is rushing to sign up to similar initiatives through the federal government's Off-Farm Efficiency program.
Murray Irrigation water policy and strategy manager Michael Pisasale said the scale of their 3,000-kilometre network meant the capital and maintenance costs involved would outweigh the water savings.
Larger volumes of water travelling through the system also meant, percentage wise, conveyance losses were less significant than seen in smaller, open channel, stock and domestic networks.
"Our offtake at Mulwala takes about 7000ML a day … to get a pipe to replicate those capacities is an enormous amount of piping infrastructure," Mr Pisasale said.
"There's a huge cost there for fairly relatively little gain in savings."
In the past, Murray Irrigation has signed up to basin plan off-farm efficiency programs, but it has ruled out participation in anymore.
"We feel that the low-hanging fruit has been picked there. We've done what we can," Mr Pisasale said.
