the rural water industry – a stool with three legs? irrigation australian conference 2012...
TRANSCRIPT
The rural water industry – a stool with three legs?
Irrigation Australian Conference 2012
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
What I am going to talk about today…
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Water Supply
Water Supply and Drainage
Water Supply,Drainage and
Environmental Flow ServicesNot very stable…!
Could sit on this if you had to…!
Nirvana?
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
History of irrigation development – water supply
•Focus on water supply
•First major structures built in the late 1800’s
•River Murray Agreement
•Major dams
•Dartmouth 1970’s
•Some 25,000 km supply system across major NSW and Vic systems
•The ‘one legged stool’
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
History of irrigation development – drainage
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•Rising water tables, water logging and salinity
•Turned to drainage (surface and sub-surface), 1970-2000’s
•Some 8,000 km of drainage across major irrigation areas of NSW and Vic
•Significant cost/revenue/resourcing
•The ‘two legged stool’
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
History of irrigation development – environmental flow?
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•2000 onwards:
-No more dams!
-No more drains!
-Water for the environment
-‘Environmental water holders’
-$3 billion to buy-back water
-1,600 GL of environmental water, soon to be 2,750 GL???
-The role for the water industry?
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
The choice…
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•Supplier mentality (two legged stool):-Water supply and drainage services
-Tap on…tap off…not sure why…
•Total solution provider (three legged stool)•Water supply, drainage and environmental flow services
•Tap on…tap off…and we know why!
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
What is in ‘environmental flow’ management?
• Planned environmental water
- Rules based
-“minimum flow passing a point in the river”
-Fairly well automated
• Held environmental water
- Entitlement based
- “this much water…now”
- Ordering water like anyone else
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
Delivery infrastructure
• Environmental flow delivery infrastructure is the same as what we have in the supply system:
- Regulators
- Channels
- Pumps
- Pipes
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
Value of environmental ‘works and measures’
• Billions of dollars of investment in environmental infrastructure?
•http://www.environment.gov.au/water/publications/mdb/fact-sheet-environmental-works.html
• $290 million already invested in The Living Murray
•Across only 5 sites!
•$10 million allocated for further investigations
• More than 15 current projects being investigated
•Basin Plan modelling has over 100 indicator sites!
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
Regulator at Koondrook-Perricoota Forest
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http://www.kpforest.com.au/
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
At a minimum…
• Who is best placed to operate and maintain this infrastructure?
• The people that operate and maintain water delivery infrastructure of course!
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Courtesy Murrumbidgee Irrigation!
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
But what else is required…?
Activity Response: Action:
Operate and maintain environmental water delivery infrastructure
Yep! No problems… Get to it!
Provide advice on where and what to water
Really? But what do we know…?
Get involved!
Monitoring and evaluation
Wow! I’m not qualified! Up skill!
Community consultation Do it all the time! Easy!
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
The industries value proposition
•Local
•Part of the community
•Feel it in your bones!
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
Size of the market…how much money?
• CEWH
•1,600 GL of water
•Spent nearly $2 Billion
•Another $1 Billion to spend
• + Infrastructure ??
• 5% on management, monitoring, evaluation and reporting?
• $150 million per year market?
•Just on MER?
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The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
What did I talk about today…?
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Water Supply
Water Supply and Drainage
Water Supply and Drainage and
Environmental Flow MgtNot very stable…!
Could sit on this if you had to…!
Nirvana?
The rural water industry – a three legged stool?
Thank you
02 6272 7004
0488 901 460
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