THREE Riverland councils were recently presented with an update on a core part of the Basin Plan, after the long-term strategy finally kicked into gear.
Loxton Waikerie, Berri Barmera and Renmark Paringa councils all received updates on the Constraints Management Strategy, which focuses on seven key areas of the Murray-Darling Basin to investigate.
This includes the Lower Murray, and focuses on how water can get to where it is needed, when it is needed, while avoiding or reducing impacts to landholders, communities and industries.
Constraints program leader Michael Colagrossi, from the Department of Environment and Water, said the strategy was a core part of South Australia’s Basin Plan commitments about better managing high flows on the River Murray.
“What happens with more environmental water coming into the system, is these high flows inundate low-lying land and infrastructure, which prevents the water from reaching the flood plains we want,” he said.
“It also means communities and businesses cannot use their bridges, roads, levies, and things like that.
“We have been working with councils, irrigation trusts, First Nations peoples and other community groups to do a big stocktake on all these low-lying pieces of land and infrastructure.”
Mr Colagrossi said the department was wrapping up the planning process and was in the process of identifying sites it wanted to invest in.
“We are taking these sites to the councils and trying to get their support for that, and following their support, we can then put it up for funding with the commonwealth and lock in this infrastructure and investment,” he said.
The constraints strategy is funded entirely by the commonwealth government, with the strategy receiving $19.964m in funding earlier in the year, described as a “game changer” by Mr Colagrassi.
“It is all about better managing the water we are fighting so hard to get into South Australia,” he said.
“So, we are starting to showcase the benefits of this which we have been working on for so long.
“It has been a long time planning and we are actually getting onto the next phase, so we are finally going to start seeing the fruits of our labour over the next couple of years….
“We will see infrastructure on the ground and water flowing where we want it to and people being able to use the river during these high flows.”
Mr Colagrossi listed a number of reasons why the strategy was important for the Riverland.
“First and foremost, it pushes the water onto the floodplain and wetting parts of the floodplain that don’t usually get wet during the normal flow, so we are talking high flows,” he said.
“The community will be more resilient to those high flows because if they’re low lying and infrastructure is upgraded, they can access their properties and moor their houseboats, and can access boat ramps during these high flows.
“When we talk about community resilience, we talk about being able to prepare for, manage and then bounce back from those high flows a bit faster.
“There is also recreation and tourism opportunities when there is more water in the river. There are more ways to explore it.”
The department’s time frame for the current stages of the strategy is currently two years, with Mr Colagrossi saying the department has a two-year funding window to get these early works done.
“We have another pipeline of works that we are hopefully going to get some more funding for,” he said.
“The funding that we have is locked in for the next two years, so we have a guaranteed funding stream, but we are also trying to pitch for some funding.
“So, if we can get some runs on the board and get these projects up and running, hopefully we can demonstrate the benefits and then unlock some more investment.”
