The SA Government has committed to intergovernmental agreements and the Living Murray initiative that will secure 500,000 ML of water for environmental purposes to improve the health of the Murray-Darling Basin by 2009.

The Murray Mouth 

Meeting the Challenge

Reports, progress and links:

On 27 March 2008, the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) Governments reached in-principle agreement at COAG for a Memorandum of Understanding on Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) reform and have committed to sign an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) at the 28 July COAG meeting. This agreement moves further in achieving a cooperative national approach to management of the MDB.

This will include the development and implementation of a Murray-Darling Basin Plan which will, among other things, provide for arrangements to allow South Australia to store water in upstream MDB storages to ensure enough water to meet the State’s critical human needs as well as providing for improved environmental outcomes in the Basin plan including increased environmental flows.

The Living Murray (TLM) First Step decision to recover an annual average of 500 gigalitres of water from 2009 is being implemented. The success of the First Step decision underpins decisions regarding further water recovery. At this stage, proposed interstate TLM water recovery projects meet each jurisdiction’s water recovery targets for environmental flows, although implementation deadlines for some projects may be difficult to achieve. South Australia is responsible for recovering 35 gigalitres of the 500 gigalitre total within SA. Thirteen gigalitres have been recovered with the remaining 22 gigalitres to be recovered through market options, wetland evaporative savings, and improved water use efficiency on-farm.

The South Australian Government continues to advocate for a Second Step decision by the Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council (and its successor) for water recovery of a further 1000 gigalitres by 2018.

The National Plan for Water Security, including referral of some powers related to the management of the River Murray to the Australian Government is supported by South Australia. On 30 July 2007 the Prime Minister announced that the passage of the water bill by the Australian Parliament and the signing of an intergovernmental agreement would allow for Australian Government funding for purposes including addressing over-allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin and improving on-farm irrigation efficiency. It also includes funding off-farm water delivery efficiency projects such as the piping and lining of channels, and river and storage operations. Water recovered under the Plan for river health will deliver significant environmental benefits. The Water Act 2007 commenced in March 2008.

For more information on the Living Murray initiative please visit:

 http://www.thelivingmurray.mdbc.gov.au/
 http://www.sawater.com.au/SAWater/Environment/TheRiverMurray/
 http://www.dwlbc.sa.gov.au/murray/index.html