Progress of water recovery under the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program
The aim of the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin (RtB) program is to provide more water for the environment, which can be used to protect and restore Basin river systems and wetlands. To date, the RtB program has secured the purchase of more than 4,500 individual trades.
The information in the table below has been updated to reflect the details of purchases secured through exchanged contracts recorded as at 30 April 2013. Further updates will be made as additional contracts are exchanged.
The table summarises the water purchases made through the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program, including the purchase of Toorale Station (Barwon-Darling and Warrego catchment) water entitlements. Some points to note regarding this purchase information are:
- It is not possible to gauge the average annual volume of water that will be recovered in each catchment by just considering the entitlement volumes that have been purchased as the long term average water yield varies across both catchments and entitlement types. To account for these variations in yield, estimates are also provided of the annual volume of water that is expected to be available for environmental use, for each entitlement type in each catchment. These figures are calculated using the Department's estimates of long term average annual yield, as advised in the Murray-Darling Basin Ministers' Communique of 4 November 2011.
- Average price paid per trade is calculated over the life of the program. Information on average prices paid in the most recent tenders can be accessed on the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin page. The difference between the average price over the life of the program and prices paid in the most recent tenders is due to changes in market conditions while the program has been operating.
| Catchment | Entitlement Type | Water Purchase Tenders - Entitlement (ML) |
Water Purchase Tenders - Average Annual Yield (ML) |
Other Purchases - Average Annual Yield (3) | Average price paid per trade ($/ML)(2) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Basin | Gwydir | General security | 88,520 | 31,867 | 2,239 | |
| Supplementary | 19,101 | 3,629 | 1,045 | |||
| Condamine Balonne | Unsupplemented | 31,050 | 31,050 | 1,535 | ||
| Intersecting Streams(1) | Unregulated | 8,106 | N/A | |||
| Namoi | General security | 6,203 | 4,776 | 2,050 | ||
| Macquarie-Bogan | General security | 57,631 | 24,205 | 1,268 | ||
| Supplementary | 1,888 | 397 | 161 | |||
| QLD Border Rivers | Medium Priority | 6,832 | 2,255 | 2,276 | ||
| Unsupplemented | 1,314 | 1,314 | N/A | |||
| Barwon-Darling(1) | Unregulated | 14,603 | 14,603 | 7,670 | 836 | |
| Southern Basin | Ovens | High reliability | 50 | 48 | N/A | |
| Goulburn-Broken | High reliability | 186,505 | 177,180 | 43,188 | 2,077 | |
| Low reliability | 10,286 | 3,600 | 7,783 | 196 | ||
| Loddon | High reliability | 2,825 | 2,683 | 1,779 | ||
| Low reliability | 644 | 174 | 200 | |||
| Campaspe | High reliability | 6,366 | 6,047 | 2,174 | ||
| Low reliability | 395 | 194 | N/A | |||
| Murrumbidgee | High security | 3,736 | 3,549 | 1,704 | ||
| General security | 184,092 | 117,819 | 914 | |||
| Supplementary | 20,821 | 2,915 | 218 | |||
| NSW Murray | General security - above choke | 198,618 | 160,880 | 1,597 | 1,133 | |
| General security - below choke | 47,547 | 38,513 | 1,107 | |||
| High security - below choke | 8,553 | 8,125 | 1,967 | |||
| VIC Murray | VIC above Choke - High reliability | 56,182 | 53,373 | 15,790 | 1,933 | |
| VIC above Choke - Low reliability | 5,406 | 1,297 | 2,354 | 193 | ||
| VIC below Choke - High reliability | 172,222 | 163,610 | 28,936 | 2,066 | ||
| VIC below Choke - Low reliability | 5,762 | 1,383 | 3,947 | 199 | ||
| SA Murray | High security | 95,936 | 86,342 | 2,099 | ||
| Lower Darling | General security | 492 | 399 | N/A | ||
| Disconnected Tributaries | Lachlan | High security | 733 | 733 | N/A | |
| General security | 81,671 | 34,302 | 683 | |||
| Wimmera-Mallee | Supply by Agreement | 22,568 | 900 | |||
| TOTAL | 1,315,984 | 977,264 | 141,939 | |||
| TOTAL LONG TERM AVERAGE ANNUAL YIELD |
1,119,202 |
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Notes:
All figures in this table are calculated using SEWPaC's estimates of the long term average annual yield for each entitlement. In the Murray-Darling Basin Ministers' Communique of 4 November 2011 that these would be used to determine how much of the 'gap' between the Baseline Diversion Limit (BDL) and the Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDL) has been 'bridged'.
(1) This data includes unregulated water entitlements acquired from the NSW Government relating to its purchase of Toorale Station. As part of the NSW Intersecting Streams Unregulated and Alluvial water sharing plan, an additional entitlement has been issued to the Commonwealth – unregulated river special additional high flow entitlement. This is new class of entitlement and at this time there is no long-term average annual yield factor available to estimate the recovery volume for this entitlement. At this stage, the unregulated river special additional high flow entitlement has not been counted in these recovery numbers.
(2) Other Purchases include water purchased from the Wimmera and Murray Irrigation Irrigator Led Group Proposals, water aquired from the New South Wales Government relating to its purchase of Toorale Station and the water purchase from the Victorian Government relating to the Goulburn-Murray Water Connections Program.
(3)Further information of pricing available at: Market price information for Murray-Darling Basin Water Entitlements