NSW Government’s corporate water deal costs Murray Darling Basin environment

A deal brokered by the NSW Government with some of the Murray Darling Basin’s largest irrigation corporations has short-changed the environment of the nation’s most precious resource.

NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean’s deal with corporate irrigators has meant less water for the environment.

THE NSW Government’s bid to make money parking some of Murray Darling Basin’s largest foreign-owned irrigation corporations’ and speculators’ water on its environmental licenses last June has backfired.

Last season NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean’s department allowed Canadian-owned Webster Ltd and Aroona Farms, speculator Duxton Water, goFarm’s Cadell Orchard and others to park and carry about 6500 megalitres of water over from last season into 2020-21, on the back of his environmental licences.

That move has now left the Minister and his bureaucrats with less water for the environment.

Allocations on NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean’s Murrumbidgee environmental water access licenses hit 100 per cent this month, which should have meant more water for the river, its wetlands and those on the mighty Murray

But under the NSW Government’s own water allocation rules the corporate water Mr Kean carried over on his licences must now be deducted from the 100 per cent allocation, instead of the full volume going to the environment.

Just how much the environment has lost remains unclear, although The Weekly Times analysis of the NSW Water Register last year tracked about 6500 megalitres of water, worth more than $2.5 million, that private corporations transferred on to Mr Kean’s environmental WAL 36338 in the lead-up to June 30.

The register showed 3000ML was transferred off the minister’s WAL on July 1 last year to South Australian almond company Aroona Farms, which is owned by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund, as part of a carry-over deal.

Cartoon: Chris Rule

Three parcels totalling 873ML were also transferred to speculators Duxton Water on July 1 last year, plus 2000ML to the Australian Executors Nominees.

Another three parcels totalling 2593 megalitres were shifted off Mr Kean’s environmental WAL from October 2019 to February last year as zero-value trades to Webster Ltd, which is owned by the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board. But it is not known what impact this transfer had on environmental allocations.

Carrying over water on the Murrumbidgee, instead of the Murray systems, would have saved companies holding water on Mr Kean’s environmental WAL36338 about $30-$40 a megalitre.

Mr Kean has not released details of how much his department earned from parking water on the government environmental licences.

A series of questions were put to Minister Kean, whose departmental bureaucrats responded by stating they were fully responsible for the trades and “the sale of carry-over space involves both opportunity and risk”.

“Typically, it can generate revenue which contributes to the payment of water charges without the loss of water, but in wet years can result in some subsequent allocation being foregone,” the Minister’s department said.

Under the NSW rules the environmental allocation loss, will be redistributed to all Murrumbidgee irrigators.