As cited from an article published by ABC News [October 29, 2021]: More than $300 million worth of water is being handed to irrigators in northern Victoria after a major upgrade to the Goulburn Murray irrigation district.
This water provided to irrigators is attributed to the water savings that Rubicon’s automated technology is achieving for the region. After many years of modernising the Goulburn Murray Network, irrigators are now being rewarded with recovered water that can either be used or sold on the market. See snippets from the article below or read the complete article published by ABC News here.
The water was saved from irrigation system upgrades dating back to 2007 and is now being gifted to irrigators to keep and use or sell on the open market.
For some, it is an asset worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time when many have complained about water leaving the region under the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
“To put it in perspective, a good acquaintance is about to pick up about $250,000 worth of water,” said Dudley Bryant, a retired farmer and former chair of Northern Victorian Irrigation Communities.
It was a controversial plan; to spend $1 billion to upgrade century-old irrigation infrastructure and split the water saved from the project three ways with the environment, irrigators and Melbourne Water authorities.
Water savings from the irrigation upgrades have already been distributed to the environment and to Melbourne Water.
Now, after a lengthy audit process, 61 gigalitres of high-reliability water and 28 gigalitres of low-reliability water across the Goulburn and Murray irrigation districts is being handed out to irrigators.
“The motivation for us was that we had an absolutely worn-out system that was costing more and more every year to keep running and nothing was being spent on it. Now we have an automated system that is state of the art and … if I wanted to, I could irrigate a farm from the MCG.” – Mr. Bryant said
See the full article published by ABC Rural News here
