North-south pipeline use backed in wet seasons instead of drought

VICTORIA’S controversial north-south pipeline should be unplugged in wet years and closed during droughts.

Pipeline flows: Victoria’s then-premier John Brumby officially opens the Sugarloaf Pipeline in 2010 with MP Danielle Green.

VICTORIA’S controversial north-south pipeline should be unplugged in wet years and closed during droughts.

It’s a concept former Labor Premier John Brumby, whose government completed construction of the $750 million pipeline in 2010, says “has considerable merit”.

Even the Victorian Nationals, who led the campaign to Plug the Pipe, this week initially said it was worth examining as a means of building up a reserve in the Thomson Dam, rather than using the pipeline to tap into northern irrigators’ supplies in the midst of drought.

Cartoon: Chris Rule

Current Government policy is to only turn on the pipeline — from the Goulburn River to Sugarloaf Reservoir — in the midst of a drought, when Melbourne’s total water storages fall below 30 per cent full on November 30 of any year.

But former State Government water bureaucrats argue 75,000 megalitres a year of pipeline water could replace water currently released from the Thomson Dam and Upper Yarra storages to fill Sugarloaf.

Ultimately more water could be left in the Thomson and Upper Yarra storages in wet years, creating a greater reserve to supply Melbourne during droughts.

“The concept of turning the pipeline on when it’s wet has considerable merit and certainly warrants further consideration and modelling,” Mr Brumby said.

Victorian Nationals water spokeswoman Steph Ryan said early on Monday that “if it could work, it’s not a bad proposal”.

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“From my perspective it’s worth considering. But you’d have to model the impact on whether you can build up a reserve in Thomson.”

But Ms Ryan a few hours later stated: “I would rule it out as an option”.

Victorian Farmers Federation water council chairman Richard Anderson said irrigators would be more willing to see the pipeline used in wet years when water was plentiful.

“It makes sense, especially if irrigators can use it as a trade-off against Melbourne taking water in a drought,” he said.

Melbourne’s water retailers share ownership of 75,000ML in Goulburn entitlements, which they gained for investing $300 million in the Goulburn Murray Water Connections irrigation modernisations works.

Victorian Water Minister Lisa Neville’s office said the Government’s “stance on the north-south (pipeline) has not changed”. “The desal plant has secured Melbourne’s water supply into the future and we won’t be transferring water away from farmers in the north to Melbourne,” Ms Neville said.

One former water bureaucrat told The Weekly Times he had taken the idea of using the pipeline in wet years to Minister Neville’s advisers in 2015, but “I got nothing out of them”.