Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Holding’s brick wall

Source: Wangaratta Chronicle - 21 Jan 2009

It’s overflowing, but minister still says bigger William Hovell no go

Written by JACQUIE SCHWIND.

A PUSH to enlarge Lake William Hovell, being pursued by Ken Jasper (MLA, Murray Valley), has hit a brick wall.

Water Minister, Tim Holding, has confirmed State Government will not consider increasing the dam capacity while upgrading works are undertaken.

Mr Jasper said he understood the projected works to strengthen the weir wall would cost an estimated $8 million and he had written to the minister, proposing stage two extension works should be implemented as part of the project.

Mr Jasper is extremely disappointed at the response, especially given the dam currently holds only 14,000 megalitres.

"Lake William Hovell regularly fills, and even overflows, following small falls of rain, indicating the dam is in an ideal position for water collection," Mr Jasper said.

"My position is clear.

"It needs to be recognised that it is our dams which have underpinned the supply of water in the Murray Darling Basin and ensured during the recent dry and drought years there has been some supply of water for irrigators, for townships, including the city of Adelaide, and even for environmental flows.

"Unfortunately governments and water authorities do not recognise without the water stored in our dams, the food bowl of Australia would not exist and we would have been facing a desperate water situation in the Murray Darling Basin and particularly in the Murray and Goulburn valleys."

Mr Jasper said the argument the size of storages could not be increased and new dams could not be built because of the Murray Darling cap was a complete furphy, based on mid-1990s methodology that all water has been allocated.

"The same argument is applied to Lake Buffalo, where constructing stage two would take the capacity from some 24,000 megalitres to an estimated one million megalitres, utilising Crown land held by the government and owned by the people of Victoria."

Mr Jasper said no dams had been built in Victoria since 1983 despite population and water demand growth.

"While I support water saving measures and conservation and recognise projections of possible lower rainfall, this merely endorses my firm belief the capacity to store water when rainfall does occur, to be used when needed, must be our over-riding priority.

"History will prove I’m right."

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