A season opening water allocation of just one per cent of general security has been offered to producers in the NSW Murray Valley.

High security has opened at 97 per cent of allocation, and landholders have access to full allocations for domestic and stock.

Local water utilities, those operated by councils, are also on 100 per cent.

In the Murrumbidgee Valley, general security licence holders have access to four per cent. High security is 95 per cent, and a full allocation has been provided for water utilities.

Despite a low starting allocation, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water predicts most general security licences will have access to good quantities of water in the 2025-26 water year thanks to these allocations and/or carryover entitlement from previous years.

“While coastal catchments are mostly fully allocated, some inland regions may see lower opening allocations than recent years due to dry conditions affecting South Australia, Victoria and Southern New South Wales,” the department said when announcing the opening allocations.

“Importantly, allocations for all high priority uses including critical town supply, environmental and domestic and stock watering are full, locking in water security where it’s needed most.

“The Lower Namoi is the only regulated valley not to receive full supplementary access allocations. Most groundwater users have also been fully allocated, as have floodplain harvesting licence holders.

“This reflects varied rainfall across the state in the past 12 months, with some systems receiving above average levels providing helpful inflows, while others getting below average rain and reductions in water availability, in particular the Murray and Murrumbidgee Valleys.

“Major dams throughout the rural network have moderate, albeit dropping, storage levels at an average of about 60 per cent capacity, totalling around 10,800 gigalitres, down from 75 per cent last year.”

NSW DCCEEW director of water planning implementation Allan Raine said it is a “tale of two regions”, with the north recently getting plenty of rain but parts of the south experiencing drought.

“While some allocations are lower than last year, it’s important to remember we’ve come off the back of a few years of record rain and drier times were always going to return at some point,” Mr Raine said.

“We’ll keep water users updated if we need to make changes to allocations to ensure we’re managing water availability as sensibly as possible.”

The NSW Government will continue to monitor conditions and announce changes to water availability and outlooks as the 2025-26 water year progresses.

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Sunday, 1st October 2023

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