Water allocations to start at 22 per cent for SA irrigators

SA irrigators will receive less than a quarter of their water allocation — slight better than the predicted worst-case scenario presented last month.

• Allocations could be as low as 14 per cent
• Drought to force allocation cuts

SA irrigators will start the season with 22 per cent of their allocation, an 8 per cent increase on the worst-case scenario presented last month.

Environment and Water Minister David Speirs said the increase was due to recent rainfall in the catchment.

“In our opening projection announcement last month, we said that a worst-case scenario was 14 per cent allocations,” he said.

“With recent rainfall occurring in the catchment we can now give confidence to irrigators that opening allocations will be at least 22 per cent with further increases highly likely.”

But the pain of allocation cuts is already being felt in the Riverland.

Irrigator Mark McLean, who farms near Waikerie, made the decision last month to remove more than 1000 mature citrus trees to save water in the coming season. The trees account for 10 per cent of Mr McLean’s citrus plantings.

“It’s very difficult to manage permanent plantings without a proper allocation,” he said.

“Since we’re not growing annual crops, we can’t just hop in and out of the water market.

“We actually need 90 per cent of our allocation to continue to grow the crops we’ve got.”

Citrus grower David Arnold, from Waikerie, said while it was pleasing the allocation figure had risen from 14 to 22 per cent, it was still likely some tough decisions would need to be made this season.

Citrus grower David Arnold on his Waikerie farm, with his dog Max. Picture Simon Cross

“We knew we were going to get at least 14 per cent, and a lot of people thought that was a conservative figure at the time it was announced,” he said.

“Hopefully the figure will continue to go up. But if it does remain dry, we’ll have to look at how viable certain crops are and whether some of the older plantings have to go.”

Ray Najar, who headed up the Murray Darling Association through the Millennium Drought, believes options such as upping the use of the desalination plant and turning a major part of Lake Alexandrina back into the estuary it once was needed to be explored.

He said with major evaporation losses coming off the Lower Lakes it was time to do some “big-picture thinking” on how they were managed and money focused on buying water should be spent on fixing evaporation issues.

“There’s been a distinct change in weather patterns and unfortunately the system is getting less and less input,” he said.

Mr Najar said Riverland growers were going to find it very hard this year, along with others along the river system.

“It’s all going to have a flow-on effect to shops and industries such as the transport sector,” he said.

“If you can give a farmer an extra 20 to 25 per cent of water, that makes a huge difference to regional communities.

“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is not a drought-proofer – you can’t overcome drought, nature will dictate every time.”

SA Murray Irrigators chairwoman Caren Martin said it was disappointing to see irrigators put in such a tough position, when many had given up water rights to help maintain the health of the system.