Goulburn River summer flows cut to protect fish breeding

Goulburn water trading rules and flow limits are being used to protect the river’s environment.

Summer surge: Acting Victorian Water Minister Richard Wynne is trying to Goulburn River’s summer flow.

The Victorian Government is making a bid to protect fish breeding and the environment of the Lower Goulburn River by limiting unnaturally high summer flows.

Acting Water Minister Richard Wynne announced today that flows out of the Goulburn to the Murray will be capped from December 15 at about 40 gigalitres a month over summer, setting a daily limit of 1100ML/day, supplemented by three higher surges to top up the Lake Boga and Lake Victoria mid-Murray storages.

Topping up the mid-Murray storages with these surges of up to 3000ML/day will ease summer demand on the Goulburn to meet Lower Murray irrigator and South Australian demands.

The move is in response to ongoing calls from Environment Victoria, anglers and the state’s boating industry for restrictions on high summer flows, they say are damaging the river and killing off juvenile native fish and eggs.

At this stage the flow regime is an interim measure for the 2021-22 season, which the government must now negotiate with the Murray Darling Basin Authority to make it permanent.

One of the key focuses of the MDBA’s river operations will be that the flow regime does not create any delivery shortfalls in the Lower Murray that could force summer rationing of water during peak demand, such as when heatwaves hit the horticultural zones.

Minister Wynne also announced a new two-part inter-valley trade limit would be introduced from tomorrow, which would replace the current year-round rolling limit of 200 GL.

The new two-part trade rule means that from July 1:

TRADE will be possible whenever the balance of the Goulburn inter-valley trade account is lower than a new limit of 190GL.

A key feature of the new two-part trade rule is that from tomorrow legacy commitments – which mean about 140GL must be delivered every year from the Goulburn to the Murray as a result of historical decisions – will be set aside.

This year, the legacy commitment is around 142GL, which will be quarantined from trade opportunity to prevent trade exceeding what can sustainably be delivered over summer.

FROM December 15, net trade will be capped to enable the inter-valley trade account balance to be drawn down over the rest of the year.

Additional trade opportunity will only available if seasonal determinations in the Goulburn are not projected to reach 100 per cent or if there is back-trade into the Goulburn.

Victoria’s retail water entitlement and market manager Joe Banks said “the trade rules come in at the same time as the limit on daily flows to make sure the amount od water that can be traded does not exceed what can be delivered”.

“A key part of the rules it that summer-Autumn trading is capped,” Mr Banks said.

For more details go to this link.

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