Murray and Goulburn Allocations Improve with Good Inflows

Determination Data

Seasonal determinations for northern Victoria regulated river systems.

Further Information

Goulburn-Murray Water (G-MW), the Resource Manager for northern Victorian water systems, today announced improvements in the seasonal allocations for the Murray and Goulburn systems. The allocations in the Broken, Campaspe, Loddon and Bullarook systems remained at zero.

The 1 October 2009 seasonal allocation in the Murray system is 29% of high-reliability water shares (HRWS), which is an increase of 16%. The seasonal allocation in the Goulburn system is 30% HRWS, which is an increase of 23%.

At the same time last year, the allocations in the Murray and Goulburn systems were 13% HRWS and 9% HRWS respectively.

G-MW's Resource Manager, Graeme Hannan, said the allocation improvements mostly came from the significant rainfall totals recorded during the last weekend in September. "The catchments for the Murray and Goulburn systems received useful rain in the days prior to the weekend, which meant that the large weekend totals quickly became inflows to the storages. Those inflows produced some of the largest allocation improvements seen in recent seasons, and with the Goulburn system reaching 30% HRWS, half of the next 172 GL of Goulburn system resource improvement will now be reserved in storage to retire the contribution of pumping from Waranga Basin."

Mr Hannan said the inflows also provided good news for customers in the other northern Victorian systems. "The shortfalls to meeting allocation commitments in the other systems still exist, but have been significantly reduced by the recent inflows events. Although allocations cannot be announced because of the shortfalls, it is likely that most of these systems will now operate continuously for delivery of domestic and stock water, and possibly some carryover, throughout the year. This is a much improved outlook for this season, considering that continuous operations would not have been possible two weeks ago."

The announcement of seasonal allocations greater than 20% HRWS in the Murray and Goulburn systems means the qualification of rights for these systems have expired. All water use by customers in these systems, regardless of purpose, must now be in accordance with the allocated volume. Qualifications of rights remain in place in the Broken, Campaspe, Loddon and Bullarook systems. More information about operation plans for the systems can be found on the G-MW website (http://www.g-mwater.com.au/).