Irrigator bills likely to soar

Published by Border Mail - 23/07/2008. Archived 23/07/08

IRRIGATORS in the Ovens and King valleys are facing a tenfold increase in what they pay for water.

The massive price rise will be partly used to offset the almost $20 million worth of work to be spent to shore up Lake Buffalo and Lake William Hovell dam walls from floods.

Discussions within Goulburn-Murray Water say the cost to supply a megalitre of water in the system could increase to $60 in the next five years.

Last summer water licence holders on the rivers paid between $5 and $6 a megalitre.

The authority’s strategy and stakeholder manager Garry Smith said that was well below the true cost of supplying its customers.

“It actually cost the water authority about $28 a megalitre to supply that water,” he said.

“If the price was to go to $60 or more, that would seem a substantial increase, but it is off an extremely low base, at the moment it is less than a cent a tonne delivered to the farm boundary.

“The price rise isn’t directly linked to the dam wall works but it was an opportunity to review our pricing.”

Goulburn-Murray Water plans to spend $8 million at Lake William Hovell and $11 million at Lake Buffalo.

Mr Smith said there was no present threat to those near the dam walls.

“The works are about the safety of the storage — particular issues include earthquake stability, some of the operational equipment but mainly flood capacity and embankment stability,” he said.

“It is also about a new understanding of extreme flood risks, well above what has been seen in those valleys.”

There would be no changes to pricing in this financial year.

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Original article available here
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Comment:
And so the price should rise tenfold. Last year, I heard of local vineyards buying in extra water at $1000 a megalitre. In these days of water shortage, it is immoral for the water authority to sell water below cost