The Perrottet government has been warned by its own advisers that the proposed rules for floodplain collection will not adequately protect the environment or the needs of communities downstream in the Murray Darling Basin.
Documents obtained in parliament by independent MLC Justin Field show that the government received advice proposing targets aimed at ensuring that river health was too low.
Officials from the department’s environment and heritage divisions also expressed concern that the goals were inconsistent with the goals of state water laws, which require that critical human and environmental needs be prioritized.
Field, scientists, conservationists and traditional homeowner groups are calling for tougher targets to be set before New South Wales Environment Minister James Griffin approves any changes to water distribution plans.
“It’s them [the government] are you going to defend river communities and the environment or give in to nationals and irrigators ’business interests? Field said.
On July 1, NSW Water Minister Kevin Anderson reintroduced regulations to allow the issuance of floodplain collection licenses.
The regulation has been disallowed three times by the Legislative Council, mainly out of concern about the need to protect water users downstream and the environment.
While there is general agreement that the collection of floodplains should be regulated, critics have called for rules to ensure that collection can only occur after water needs have been met. for areas such as Menindee Lakes and Ramsar Wetlands, such as the Macquarie Wetlands.
In response to a parliamentary inquiry, Anderson published a set of targets to protect the events of the “first scandal” from being extracted by irrigators.
They include a target that would prevent water from being taken when there are less than 195 gigaliters stored in the Menindee Lakes system.
For floodplain harvesting to occur, Griffin must sign amendments to the watershed plans for the northern basin.
An information session produced in June by Griffin’s department said the environment and heritage group “considers the proposed uptake targets to be too low to protect key environmental assets outside of extreme dry periods.”
He said the targets did not take into account long-term environmental health and do not “support WM’s water management principles”. [Water Management] Act”.
To do so, the environment and heritage group said it had prepared alternative targets based on environmental water requirements.
The briefing reflects an earlier email sent to Griffin’s office in May in which it was noted that the targets were “low”.
Another email among officials on Feb. 11 showed them discussing the potential of downstream targets that would prevent extraction when there were critical human and environmental needs.
Officials wrote that these targets “would strengthen the case that the minister is taking all reasonable steps” to comply with the Water Management Act, noting that a legal challenge for these reasons was considered “likely”.
The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has said the proposed targets are so low that “they will never significantly restrict the collection of floodplains and will not ensure that water for river health and community needs are prioritized for about irrigation “.
They said the 195 gigalitre target for Menindee Lakes, the site of mass fish deaths in 2018 and 2019, was so low that the volume stored in Menindee had only dropped to that level six times in the last 43 years, always during an extreme drought.
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Professor Richard Kingsford, a member of the group, said the principle of setting goals was “to be applauded”, but that they had to be higher to meet the needs of communities and traditional downstream owners and for Ramsar sites such as the Macquarie wetlands or the Gwydir. wetlands to benefit.
“They’re really the goals you have when you don’t want goals,” he said.
“We need to make sure that these ecosystems and downstream people who need water get enough of it and avoid things like these massive killings of fish.”
The NSW Nature Conservation Council said the government “should go back to the drawing board, consult widely and find a more sustainable solution”.
Graeme McCrabb, a farmer and water advocate who sounded the alarm over Menindee’s fish deaths, said the target in his region was “insulting”.
The discussion in the government on water distribution rules continues.
Griffin said the government is committed to regulating the collection of floodplains to keep water levels sustainable and return water to the environment.
“I am carefully considering the detail of the proposed rules that will authorize the collection of floodplains.”
Anderson said the government’s floodplain collection policy was “the biggest environmental reform the practice has ever seen.”
He said they were the first such restrictions on any part of the basin and would significantly strengthen downstream protections.