The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists have raised major concerns about new reforms which seek to regulate the practice of floodplain harvesting in the northern Murray-Darling Basin.
The regulatory amendments introduced to the NSW Parliament today provide a framework to regulate the capture of periodic flood waters as they move across land and into the Murray-Darling system.
While the practice of building dams and levees on private property to capture floodwaters is widespread in the northern basin, this is the first time floodwater harvesting will be licenced under the Water Management Act.
Wentworth Group member Professor Richard Kingsford, a river ecologist and conservation biologist, said billions of dollars worth of new water licences could be created without adequate protections for communities and the environment.
“Our rivers and downstream communities are so dependent on the floods that get onto the floodplains,” said Professor Kingsford. “They are large enough to reach the floodplain eucalypt forests and trigger the breeding of native fish and then connect the river downstream, supplying different human communities.”
“We have to get this right for the future of our rivers. These reforms officially sanction an entirely new licence class for water extraction, without safeguards to protect the health of our already stressed Murray-Darling Basin rivers.”
“New water licences for floodplain irrigation should only be created when the rivers can get enough water and this will clearly not happen under the proposed rules.”
“Unless actual water is flowing down the river to meet ecological needs and satisfy stock and domestic and Native Title rights, then there will be question marks as to whether core legal requirements in the Water Management Act are being met.”
“Floodplain harvesting should only occur once those higher priority, downstream needs have been satisfied, as required by law.”
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