In response to my question, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office has made a stunning admission that environmental damage along a 100km section of the river was caused by environmental, conveyance and irrigation water sent down under the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

My suggestion that the best way to fix the environmental destruction was to stop water trading below the Barmah Choke was met with an extraordinary comment from Andrew Reynolds. He said there was no extra water sent through the Choke because every trade below it was matched by one moving water back above the Choke. I wonder if that is right?

I am pleased to see that this Estimates has marked the demise of the supposed “sand slug”, which has now morphed into “sedimentation”. I was also pleased to get an undertaking that the MDBA will not create a man-made flood event to drain the Menindee Lakes and the current surge event will be limited below 40GL.

Another major flip flop from the MDBA came when I asked if the water coming into the Coorong and Lake Albert from the South East drains restoration project was environmental water for the basin. This classification was shot down last estimates however this time around Andrew Reynolds agreed this water was basin water to be used for the environment.

With only 350GL left to complete the SDL acquisitions I repeat my call that the restoration project should be stepped up and used to provide the remaining 350GL of SDL water. Farmers in the basin have given up enough water and should not be asked to provide one more drop.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Are you familiar with the damage, the extensive damage, to the banks of the Murray River around the Barmah Choke?

Yes, I am.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, that’s good, we won’t need to table that then. It’s caused by nonstop water flows, and the picture that I was going to show you, if necessary, could have been taken anywhere along about 100 kilometres of the river, the damage is so pervasive. The Choke is being eroded by combined environmental, conveyance, and irrigation flows. What’s the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder doing about this damage?

Thanks, Senator. As you said, it’s a combination of all the water in the river that’s causing the bank erosion there. My colleagues from the MDBA may also want to talk about some of the geomorphology that’s occurring in the bed of the river there. There’s silting in the bed of the river, which is reducing the capacity of that narrow section of the river, between Yarrawonga and down to about Barmah, but the main sedimentation is in the Barmah area. And that damage is part of major studies and scientific work going on in that area, trying to work out what’s causing it, how it might be remediated. And we’re happy to be proud of that. I would also like to add that the water that the Commonwealth environmental water holder puts through that system there, is run counter cyclical to some of the irrigation demand in the system. We also put water around the choke through some of the forest streams and rivers through that area. And I have a bank into the forest there that helps de-energize some of that water, by taking some of that pressure off that peak demand season. We think we may actually be mitigating some of the issues that may otherwise be arising in that area.

[Malcolm Roberts] Before we do things, Pauline, Senator Hanson, and I we try to get the facts. So we went down the Murray River after hearing of extensive complaints from southern Queensland and then southern New South Wales and Northern Victoria. And we went down the Murray. And then when I came back into the Senate, I over flew the whole basin and the number one thing that I noticed I picked up in the first five minutes of my flight out of Aubrey, heading down the river, the river is incredibly tortuous incredibly so, and that tells me one thing the gradient is so, it’s almost flat and you would know that. And yet the amount of water that’s being shoved down that river is just phenomenal. And it’s doing this damage. This is the opposite of what environmental guardian should be doing in our opinion. So let me continue asking questions. This is just physically impossible to get all that water from the Upper Murray, downstream to the large corporate plantations, and all the environmental water. So this is the fourth estimates that I’ve asked about environmental damage to the choke, as the Commonwealth environmental water holder who should be interested in this, or the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, who are administering the plan that has caused this damage, done anything to stop this damage. It sounds like you haven’t just studied at the moment.

Senator, I think it’s fair that certainly the environmental water flows through the choke, as you said, other purposes as well I might ask the Murray-Darling basin authority to come forward and talk about

[Malcolm Roberts] Sure.

what’s being done in respect of the choke.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you for acknowledging that there is a lot of water going down through there.

Andrew Reynolds, Executive Director River Management with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. So management of the choke is a significant concern for the Authority and how we regulate the river system. It has been pointed out there are a number of competing demands on the system, a delivery of consumptive water for irrigation demands, excuse me, environmental water demands through the system as well. There are a number of, as Mr. Taylor said, a number of studies have been underway to understand how the geomorphology of the choke is changing. Certainly sedimentation, which is occurring in the choke reduces the capacity through there in terms of the management arrangements there. Thank you. We certainly are focusing our system planning on how we move water through the system. We work very, very closely with environmental water holders and irrigation operators in terms of understanding demands, planning our system operations, so that we can deliver water to to Lake Victoria at varying times throughout the year. We make extensive use of inter-valley transfers from the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee system to also get a different pattern of water through the system to, in part, limit the amount of erosion that occurs. We certainly are working on getting a study underway to understand how we might better utilise Murray irrigation infrastructure or indeed infrastructure on the Victorian side, through the GMID to also be able to take some of the pressure off the banks through the river system. All of those pieces of work are underway. Some of them we can adapt our operations immediately to try and alleviate some of those concerns. Some of them are longer run pieces of work that will take some time to affect change.

[Malcolm Roberts] Are there any plans to construct a pipeline or a channel around that Barmah choke?

No, there’s no plans to construct anything in particular. We’re looking at a study to optimise how we might utilise existing infrastructure, certainly looking at whether or not there are other flow paths through the forest where we might be able to use some of the existing outfalls particularly from the Murray irrigation system. I had to put water into other smaller creeks to run it past the choke that way. That study may lead to investigation of some enhancements of that system but we’re yet to progress to that stage.

[Malcolm Roberts] So there’s no consideration or idea of a pipeline to get around it, or a channel to get around it? Because some of the locals are telling us that there are surveyors working in the Barmah overflow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Certainly there’s no significant studies like that around any major bypasses. We’ve not commissioned any on-ground field surveys or the likes. I’m not quite sure what people have observed but it’s not anything that we’ve commissioned.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. So the trading of water used to be limited in the Murray-Darling Basin, as I understand it, from what I was told from by commissioners on the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, that preceded the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, used to be limited to, a certain, limited to within each valley, within each catchment, and only to a certain extent downstream. Now they can be inter-catchment transfers, inter-valley transfers, and extensive transfers along the river. So we’ve got a lot of water moving from the northern part of the valley, Murray valley, down to the, sorry, the upstream part of the valley down to the large plantations. Wouldn’t one option be to stop that trading?

So Senator Roberts, there is actually a limit on trade from above the choke to below the choke. It’s been in place since 2014. And there’s no proposal that that would be relaxed. That limitation on trade requires that the net volume of water traded downstream is zero. So trade from above the choke to below can only occur if there’s been a an equivalent volume traded upstream first. And so the total volume of water moving through the choke is unchanged by trade.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, in a meeting that the Commonwealth environmental water holder was in, I think you were there Mr. Reynolds as well, in Parliament House with us in October of 2019 or thereabouts I was advised that the department is working on a report into water loss from over landing through the Barmah forest and has been collecting this data for many years. It’s now May 2021. It’s almost two years later. And this report has not been tabled. Isn’t this a critical, critical report for making good decisions about watering the Barmah?

So we have an ongoing programme of assessing each and every event where we put water through the forest for environmental water holders’ use, or indeed for transfers downstream in the rare occasions when that’s necessary. We use that work to assess the loss of water or the consumption of water within the forest. That’s part of the work that Mr. Taylor was talking about earlier, in terms of assessing the return flows to the river system. In other words, how much of the environmental water holders’ water is consumed in the forest versus how much comes back into the river to be used further downstream for other watering events. That’s an ongoing piece of work that will continue, I would imagine almost indefinitely, because every time you have another event you have another bit of data to assess the basis on which those losses are assigned. Certainly all of that work is done on the basis of making sure that there is no third party impact of water availability for other entitlement holders. So we take a conservative approach to those estimates, but we’re continually refining them.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, maybe I wasn’t clear with my communication in the previous question. We were told there was a report coming, and this is almost two years later and there’s been no report. I would’ve thought the Commonwealth environmental water holder and yourself would be champing at the bit to get that report.

So we have produced reports on losses in terms of losses through the system, and we’ve just recently provided an update on losses for the last two water years, but the work on individual watering events and the development of effectively the loss rates applied to environmental water holdings is ongoing. It’s not being reported as a single report. We need to refine that,

[Malcolm Roberts] We were told there was a report coming and there’s no report. Are you aware of any report?

There are numbers of pieces of work that have been documented. I’d have to take on notice whether they’ve been published has certainly been shared with states and other others involved in that development of those estimates.

[Malcolm Roberts] So we were told there was a report coming.

[Andrew Reynolds] I don’t,

Let me just clarify, Senator Roberts, from my own knowledge, cause, there’s a report about the environmental water, or a report about the conveyance losses and use, cause I know in 2019 there was a report on that, the conveyance and loss through the Barmah area. And I think you just updated that? That was meant to be annual, but 2019, they didn’t do one last year.

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s what I’m asking about. Reporting the water loss from over landing through the Barmah.

[Senator Davey] That’s been done, in 2019.

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. That report was done in 2019. And we’ve recently in the last month published an update that that completed the data for the 2019 water year and also reported on last year as well.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, with regard to that then how much environmental water went into the Barmah in 2020?

I’d have to take on notice the specific number.

Senator Roberts, do you have much more? because it is lunchtime, I,

[Malcolm Roberts] I just have one more question,

One more, perfect, thank you.

[Malcolm Roberts] Floodplain harvesting in excess of allowed take deprives the environment of flows needed to keep the river alive, and that means you have to do more with your water than it was intended to do. Is floodplain harvesting in the northern basin affecting your environmental water permit, remit, and is there anything you wish to say on this matter?

Thanks Senator, there’s been quite a bit of discussion with some northern Victorian irrigators and myself around this issue and other people across the southern connected basin. And I think there was some conversations around floodplain harvesting over the last five years and the potential impact that it may have had on either our resources and other resources in the southern connected basin. And in those conversations, we outlined that in over the last five years in 2016, it was a wet year and there was probably significant floodplain harvesting but had little, or minor impact in the south as it was good allocations in that year. 2017, there was good reserves in stocks in the south. And again, it probably had little impact upon our resources for environmental water delivery, 2018, 19, and 20. So the remaining three years in that period were probably record droughts in the northern basin. And as a consequence there was no water really in the northern basin to harvest. So again, it probably had little or no impact upon our resources available for environmental water delivery in the Southern connected basin. I’d like to add though, that the Commonwealth environmental water holder intends to put a submission in to the New South Wales government on the floodplain harvesting process. We’re very concerned about ensuring anything that occurs in that space is completely transparent, well measured, high levels of compliance, because in certain flow circumstances it could impact upon flows, could have an impact upon our capacity to deliver water particularly in some of the northern basin, probably more so than its likely impact in the Southern basin.

[Malcolm Roberts] Because as I understand it, before we go to lunch, one final thing. And as I understand it, as I understand it the people who end up paying, ultimately, with loss of water, are the farmers in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. If someone’s going to lose it and water can’t come from the northern basin, they lose it.

So, I guess the impact of floodplain harvesting if there’s less resource makes it through the flows any of the reduced allocations as a core, that as that resource is shared is shared everywhere. It’s my understanding of it.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thanks, chair.