States to spend $2m on Barmah dredge assessment

A meeting of water ministers has opted to spend a further $2m before deciding whether to dredge the Barmah Choke.

River banks along the Barmah Choke have eroded due to high flows. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

A meeting of water ministers has opted to spend a further $2 million before taking action to clear the Barmah Choke.

At the Murray Darling Basin council on Friday, basin state ministers chose five options to “explore in greater detail”, which included dredging the choke, a Murray Darling Basin Authority spokeswoman said.

The Barmah Choke, a narrow section of the Murray River, for years has been throttled by a growing sand slug, limiting the volume of water able to pass through the section to horticultural developments in the lower Murray.

The options chosen by the council for further assessment were:

REMOVING sediment from the riverbed;

BANK protection works within the Barmah-Millewa reach;

CHANGES to the operation and management of Tar-Ru (Lake Victoria);

USING Victorian mid-Murray storages to meet peak irrigation demand; and

UPGRADING existing irrigation infrastructure to move water past the Barmah Millewa reach.

Building new infrastructure to bypass the choke was not on the list.

The council opted to spend a total of $2.35m on assessments and consultation, two years after the federal government spent $3m on a feasibility study.

Barmah Choke. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

“The MDBA and state agencies will now do detailed planning for the suite of options approved by Ministers as part of the completed Barmah-Millewa Feasibility Study.

“This next detailed stage will be done in a careful and considered way, ensuring each option is assessed against cultural, environmental, social values and economic criteria before progressing to another Ministerial decision,” the spokeswoman said.

A timeline for the assessment has not been made publicly available. The feasibility study has also not been released. An MDBA spokeswoman said the feasibility study would be published in March.

In December, the Murray Darling Basin Authority warned there would be an 80GL water shortfall per year to agriculture below the choke in 10 years’ time — equal to $230 million in lost agricultural production annually — if nothing was done.

Horticultural developments in the lower Murray have continued to increase in recent years despite the risk authorities would not be able to provide enough water to the plantings.

A Murray Darling Basin Authority report last year revealed almond plantings had increased a whopping 516 per cent to 45,145ha between 2003 and 2021. Table grape plantings increased 66 per cent to 12,820ha, and olive tree plantings went up 179 per cent to 4505ha.

The vast almond plantings, which have now officially replaced wine grapes as the dominant horticultural crop in the Lower Murray, are expected to put increased pressure on water supplies. Almonds demanded an average of 12.5 megalitres of water a hectare annually, compared to 9-10ML/ha for grapes.

This article has been amended to make clear the Ministerial Council will undertake a further assessment before committing to dredge the Barmah Choke. A previous version of the article said the ministers had “opted to dredge the choke … pending a $2 million assessment”.