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Water for the environment

Water recovery projects

In addition to directly allocating water to the environment through the rules in the water sharing plans, a number of water recovery projects are underway aimed at delivering water more efficiently to water users thereby creating water savings which can be used to provide additional environmental water.

The Darling River Water Saving Project

The Darling River Water Saving Project is a joint feasibility study examining options for securing substantial water savings in the NSW Darling River system, including the Menindee Lakes. The project will deliver a 20-year strategic plan for the troubled river system. It complements state and national activities aimed at improving water management in the Murray Darling Basin, increasing environmental flow availability, and other benefits including security of water supply to Broken Hill.

The NSW Government will provide 50 per cent of the cost of the study while the remaining 50 per cent will be provided by the Australian Government.

The project is examining the potential to achieve water savings at the Menindee Lakes and in the NSW Darling River System upstream of Menindee.

The Menindee Lakes is the main water storage on the Lower Darling. The lakes are located adjacent to the lower course of the Darling River in far western New South Wales, approximately 110 km from Broken Hill. The lakes are an important storage and supply water to parts of New South Wales (particularly Broken Hill), Victoria and South Australia. The project will assess the potential for reducing evaporation from the Menindee Lakes, the largest single source of evaporative loss from the managed water supply system.

The Menindee Lakes were, in their natural state, ephemeral lakes that were filled only during floods. Between 1949 and 1968 they were turned into permanent storages with a total capacity of approximately 2000 gigalitres (GL), or four times the volume of Sydney Harbour, with a surface area of 453 sq km. As the lakes are large, shallow storages in an arid area, evaporative losses are significant. Losses can be as high as 750 GL a year, with average losses recently estimated to be 425 GL a year. In recent times, due to the drought, only two of the four main lakes, Wetherell and Pamamaroo, have had water in them with the total storage of the system in December 2007 as low as 1.5 per cent of capacity.

In August 2006 an Environmental Impact Statement appraised a series of proposed works for the Menindee system designed to improve operational efficiency, in particular allowing the two lower lakes (Menindee and Cawndilla) to be emptied more quickly and in priority to the two upper, and somewhat deeper, lakes (Wetherell and Pamamaroo). However the reduction in evaporative losses in the works proposed were very small, with median water savings estimated at less than 5 GL per annum.

More recently, preliminary investigations completed in Part A of the project identified six schemes that could yield far more significant water savings of up to 180 GL per annum on average. This could be achieved by significantly changing the operation of the lakes.

Part B of the project will further refine the options to change the operation at the Menindee Lakes and will also develop longer term strategic plan initiatives which aim to secure water savings from the NSW part of the Upper Darling Basin, including:

On-farm efficiency measures relating to farm storage dams and on-farm irrigation processes
Market based measures
Infrastructure projects at locations other than the Menindee Lakes.
Regulatory measures in the context of water sharing plan reviews

All water savings will be returned to the Murray Darling Basin's rivers to improve river and wetland health.

Community and stakeholder participation and timeframe

Part B of the project commenced in November 2008. The project team, lead by Sinclair Knight Merz will refine the work completed to date and will report on the results of the analysis by mid 2009. At that time a broad round of community meetings will be held to explain the finding of the study. The feedback from these meetings will be used to help formulate the recommended scheme and the development of the strategic plan. The study findings will be delivered to the NSW and Australian Governments in September 2009.

Regular progress reports will be posted on this page.

For further information please call 1800 778 900 or email information@dwe.nsw.gov.au (quoting Darling River Water Saving Project).

More information

Part A Report (PDF 2.5 MB)
Community Update No. 1 – November 2008 (PDF 225KB)
Media release 14 Nov 2008 - Next steps in Menindee Lakes Water Savings Project (PDF 19KB)

The Living Murray Initiative

The Living Murray Initiativeis a major investment by the NSW, Victorian, South Australian, ACT and Commonwealth Governments to improve the environmental health of the Murray River by recovering water for environmental purposes. $700 million is being invested over five years to recover water to improve the environmental health of six significant ecological sites along the Murray, namely Barmah Millewa Forest; Perricoota – Koondrook and Gunbower Forest; Hattah Lakes Complex; Chowilla wetlands and floodplain; Coorong and the Murray Mouth; and the main channel of the Murray River. Another $150 million is being spent on environmental works and measures. The NSW target is to recover 249 GL for the environment and the NSW Government has completed or commenced work on a number of projects.

The $54 million Darling Anabranch scheme involves the removal or modification of block banks and other water regulation structures which create a series of water pools and the installation of pumps, a pipeline and a filtration system. This will save substantial volumes of water and allow the re-introduction of more natural flow conditions along the 460 kilometres of the Great Darling Anabranch.

The following table lists the projects being developed or under consideration in NSW for The Living Murray:

The Living Murray Water Recovery Projects

Market-Based Measures	Description	Estimated Volume of Water Recovered (ML)
Poon Boon Lakes (completed)	Buy-back of licences.	9,000
Acquisition of Innovation Water Products	Market-based project to develop and purchase new products.	9,000
Licence Purchase 06/09	Strategic purchase of Market based products
Contribution to Australian Government tender scheme	Purchase of excess water entitlement to be achieved through efficiency gains.	10,000

River Systems Savings (Infrastructure)	Description	Estimated Volume of Water Recovered (ML)
Edward River Savings Stage 1 (completed)	Construction of 18 regulators to stop unwanted flooding of Millewa Forest.	7,100
Croppers Lagoon (completed)	Construction of a regulator to better manage the regulated flow to prevent unnatural flooding of wetlands.	800
Darling Anabranch Pipeline (under construction)	Provision of an alternative more efficient water supply system for stock and domestic water.	47,000
Darling River water savings	A range of measures to improve operational water efficiency in the Darling river.	40,000
Coobool Creek	Works and operational changes to reduce losses in Coobool Creek.	3,000
Lake Tooim	Reduce evaporation losses from the lake.	500
Lake Moira (stage 3)	Construction of outlet channel to drain lake closer to the natural recession pattern.	1,400
Murray Wetland Savings	Works to better manage the regulated flow to prevent unnatural flooding of wetlands.	2,000
Lower Murray Darling Wetlands	Works to better manage the regulated flow to prevent unnatural flooding of wetlands.	500
Edward River stage 2	Further works such as pumps and bloc-banks	4,900
Edward River stage 3		400
Mid- Murray wetlands	Works to better manage the regulated flow to prevent unnatural flooding of wetlands.	3,000

Irrigation and on-farm efficiency schemes	Description	Estimated Volume of Water Recovered (ML)
Rice Growers Association	Working with rice farmers to find more efficient on-farm water delivery.	20,000
Irrigation Corporations	Reduction of channel losses.	10,000
Murray irrigation	Remote control of high flow outlets.	10,000
Pipe It	Landholders to replace stock and domestic channels with pipelines	5,000

Snowy Initiative

The Snowy Initiative or the Water for Rivers program has been established to achieve significant improvements in environmental flows into the Snowy and Murray river systems. The Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victorian Governments committed $375 million over eight years to fund and commission water efficiency projects to provide the environmental flows.

The targets include returning 212,000 megalitres, or 21% of the average natural flow, to the Snowy River and 70,000 megalitres to the Murray River in a staged approach over 10 years. The first environmental release to the Snowy was made in August 2002. To date an additional 100,000 megalitres of water has been released and in 2006/2007 a further 92,000 megalitres of water savings are expected to improve the health of the Snowy River.

The $29 million Barren Box Swamp project is saving up to 20,000 megalitres per year through reducing evaporation losses. The project involved constructing embankments to divide the 3,200 hectare swamp into three parts and reducing the total surface area of the section used for water supply. It will rehabilitate more than half of the swamp area back to an ephemeral wetland and improve water quality.

The following table lists projects being investigated for the Snowy:

The Snowy Water Recovery Projects

Project	Description	Estimated Water Recovered (where known)(ML)
Forest Creek Stage 1 (completed)	Provision of alternative stock and domestic supply.	11,000
Barren Box Swamp (completed)	Reduction in evaporation losses.	20,000
Coleambally Channel Automation Stage 1	Improved channel control.	3,000
Forest Creek Stage 2	Provision of alternative water supply.	20,000
Yanco Creek	System savings through willow removal, wetland works and removal of structures.	3,000
Savings from stock and domestic supply.	Pipeline and channel seepage control.
Hay Irrigation District Pressurised Stock and Domestic System	Pipeline construction.	500
Murrumbidgee River Works	Works to better manage the regulated flow.	28,000
Murrumbidgee River Improved Control	Improved control of water management.	15,000
Coleambally Outfall Drain	Provision of alternative water supply.	7,000
Coleambally Irrigation Area Channel Automation Stage 2	Improved channel control.	7,000
On-farm Savings	On farm water use efficiency.	3,000
Wah Wah Stock and Domestic Pipeline	Pipeline to relace open channels.	10,000

NSW Wetland Recovery Plan

The NSW Wetland Recovery Plan is a 4–year plan to deliver benefits to ecologically significant wetlands through water efficiency projects, voluntary buy-back of water licences and projects to improve wetland management. The State Government has allocated $13.4 million to this project and a matching $13.4 million is also to be provided from the Australian Government Water Fund.

The first stage focuses on developing Environmental Water Management Plans for the Macquarie Marshes and Gwydir Wetlands, and implementing infrastructure projects to improve water efficiencies and deliver more water to these wetlands. Some water licences have also been purchased from willing sellers. In time the program will be expanded to cover other important wetlands throughout the State.

RiverBank

The $105 million RiverBank project will use funds raised from the NSW Waste and Environment Levy to buy water from licence holders that will then be used to provide water for the environment. This project is being administered by the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation. Some 15,000 ML of water have been purchased in the Macquarie Valley.

Cap and Pipe the Bores Program

The Great Artesian Basin, underlying 22 per cent of Australia, is one of the largest underground water resources in the world. However many of the bores in the basin are free flowing and supply water along open bore drains, resulting in both significant losses in artesian pressure and wastage of water.

Since the 1990s various programs have been in place to cap and pipe the artesian bores. In 2004 the Commonwealth and the State Governments agreed to jointly provide $32 million towards the Cap & Pipe the Bores Program. The program provides financial incentives to landholders to offset the cost of rehabilitating bores and installing efficient piped systems. In total almost 40,000 megalitres of water have been saved since the work commenced. In the last three years alone 20,000 megalitres were saved. Artesian pressure will improve over time. It has been predicted that improvements of up to 16 metres in artesian pressure will occur as a result of the work to date.

Read more information on the Great Artesian Basin Sustainability Initiative: Cap & Pipe the Bores.