Northern Victorian irrigation districts will start the year with more than 50 per cent allocations.

The northern Victoria resource manager has set opening allocations of 63 per cent for high-reliability water shares in the Murray system, 69 per cent for Goulburn and Loddon, and 100 per cent for Campaspe.

The Broken system opens with five per cent and the Bullarook system starts the year with zero.

The irrigation season doesn’t open for most systems until August 15.

On the outlooks, the Murray and Goulburn systems could expect a 100 per cent allocation by August 15 under an average inflow scenario.

Resource manager Mark Bailey said the opening seasonal determinations reflected reserve availability across the systems.

“Reserves secured during 2023-24 have underwritten the opening seasonal determinations in the Murray, Goulburn, Campaspe and Loddon systems,” he said.

“The storages in these systems are holding large volumes despite recent months of below-average rainfall.

“Growth in the seasonal determinations in the Broken and Bullarook systems will depend on rainfall and resulting catchment flows during the early months of the water year.”

Noting the recent weather aligned with a dry outlook scenario, Dr Bailey said the latest Bureau of Meteorology outlook favoured slightly below-average rainfall between July and September.

“The risk of spill in the Murray system is 85 per cent and 80 per cent in the Goulburn system,” he said.

“In the Campaspe system, the risk of spill from Lake Eppalock is about 70 per cent.

“The risks have fallen since the last update, consistent with below-average storage flows in May and June.”

Dr Bailey said the risk of spill assessment did not describe the chances of flooding this season.

“The risk of spill is a water accounting assessment. It does not refer to flood risks downstream of the storages.”

Barmah Choke

The Barmah Choke trade opportunity was released at 8.30am on Monday, July 1.

About 59 Gl of water was traded through the Barmah Choke on Monday.

Using a new trading process, Victoria and NSW will process applications alternatively.

The Barmah Choke is a naturally narrow stretch of the Murray River that limits the volume of water which can be delivered downstream.

The choke therefore has a trade restriction to protect delivery to existing entitlement holders and to maintain the river environment.

NSW allocations

General security licenses in NSW have received a 35 per cent opening allocation for the 2024-25 water year.

High-security allocations in the NSW Murray system have received full entitlements.

General security carryover into the 2024-25 water year is anticipated to total nearly 837 Gl, approaching the maximum 50 per cent of total general security share components.

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Tuesday, 2nd July 2024

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