G-MW

1. G-MW was formed on 1 July, 1994 when the Victorian Rural Water Corporation was dissolved. G-MW is a water corporation owned by the State Government and governed by a Board of Directors, who are appointed by the Minister for Water.

2. G-MW is Australia's largest rural water corporation managing around 70% of Victoria's stored water resources, around 50% of Victoria's underground water supplies and Australia's largest irrigation delivery network.

3. G-MW is the appointed Water Resource Manager for northern Victoria which means G-MW makes seasonal allocations for all regulated river systems in northern Victoria.

4. G-MW's service region covers more than 68,000 square kms - that's about the same size as Tasmania.

 G-MW's Role

5. G-MW harvests, stores, allocates and delivers water to customers on regulated river systems. On unregulated streams and in groundwater areas G-MW's job is to assist the equitable sharing of available resources between customers.

6. G-MW shares its local knowledge and expertise with State and Commonwealth Governments and their agencies to inform the development of water policy and assist the delivery of water management programs.

7. G-MW does not provide drinking (potable) water. G-MW supplies bulk water that urban water corporations process before delivering to residents and businesses in local towns.

8. G-MW's business activity is funded by customers and project investors. Operating and maintaining the storage and delivery networks represent around 80% of G-MW's annual costs. G-MW also provides fee for service activities including processing of water trades on behalf of the Water Register and is the Victorian Constructing Authority for the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA).

9. With its regional partners, G-MW maintains and operates salt interception schemes at Pyramid Creek, Sunraysia and Barr Creek that prevent more than 80,000 tonnes of salt from entering the River Murray system each year on average.

10. Each year G-MW undertakes regular (at least monthly) water quality tests at all our storages. With our regional partners we monitor the quality of water in the rivers and any water returned to the rivers from the irrigation drainage network.

 Water Ownership

11. Farmers, industry, urban water corporations, investors and environmental managers own nearly 2,500,000 ML of ground and surface water entitlements valued at nearly $5 billion.

12. Just as land entitlements are recorded in the Victorian Land Register, all water entitlements are recorded in the Victorian Water Register.

13. More than 99.9% of water entitlements are owned by customers, G-MW owns less than 0.1% and this is held on behalf of and delivered to 4 water supply districts.

14. Customers can buy and sell water entitlements, with more than $700 million of water entitlements and seasonal allocation traded last year.

15. The price of water entitlements is negotiated between the seller and buyer. G-MW is not involved in trading price negotiations. G-MW processes and approves water trade applications in line with the relevant legislation and water trading rules.

 Water sharing

16. Urban water corporations use water restrictions to manage customer demand. Rural water customers' use is limited by the volume (seasonal allocations) - customers' can use their water for any purpose and can buy water if they need more, sell water if they have more than they need and carryover water for use in following seasons.

17. Seasonal allocations share the available water resources on each regulated river system and for each ground water area amongst all entitlement holders. For example a 60% allocation means there are sufficient resources in the system to allow all customers including farmers, urban water corporations and environmental managers to access 60% of their entitlement.

18. Flows on regulated river systems are managed by the storages, weirs and regulators. Unregulated streams do not have these controls and instead rosters and restrictions are used to ensure appropriate environmental flows and equitable access for all users.

 Water Use

19. On average northern Victoria's towns and businesses, environmental managers and farmers use around 1,770,000 ML of water each year but this varies in line with seasonal conditions. In the past 15 years as much as 2,700,000 ML and as little as 634,000 ML has been delivered to customers in a season.

20. Across northern Victoria around 95% of the water managed by G-MW is used for irrigation, the environment uses around 3% and regional towns and communities consume around 2%.

21. Across our region nearly 5,000 customers rely on underground water and use on average 180,000 ML a year.

22. Channels deliver water to more than 14,000 customers including nearly 30 regional towns in G-MW's Irrigation Areas. The channels usually operate from 15 August to 15 May. Groundwater customers and customers with direct access to rivers and streams can usually access water from 1 July to 30 June.

23. Customers in G-MW's six Irrigation Areas own around 75% of all the available water shares on the Goulburn and Victorian Murray systems, and also account for around 75% of all water deliveries.

 Water delivery

24. If every Irrigation Area customer wanted water on the same day, our channel system couldn't deliver it. Instead customers place orders for deliveries on regulated systems. G-MW plans and schedules as many as 350,000 orders for water from farmers, urban water corporations and environmental managers - that's more than 1000 orders each and every day of the irrigation season.

25. It takes more than 10 days for water released at Lake Hume or Lake Eildon to reach customers in Torrumbarry or Pyramid Boort Irrigation Areas, but G-MW manages the system to deliver orders within four days of receiving the customer's order.

26. To ensure the customer receives the full amount they ordered, G-MW has to release extra water to allow for the amount that is lost to evaporation and seepage along the way to the customer's outlet. G-MW must also release water to meet environmental obligations including minimum passing flows in rivers.

27. There are around 6,300 kms of channels in our irrigation areas - end to end the channels would run from Sydney to Perth and at least half way back again.

28. A network of more than 3,000 km of drains capture run-off from local rainfall and farm irrigation and help manage the impact of run off on local waterways and the environment.

29. There are more than 900km of pipes delivering water to domestic and stock and irrigation customers.

30. G-MW's entire storage and delivery network is valued at more than $5.9 billion. G-MW owned and operated storages have a replacement cost of $2.2 billion. G-MW manages MDBA storages with a replacement cost of $1.2 billion. Our delivery network including channels has a replacement cost of $3.7 billion.

31. There are more than 50,000 customer outlets across G-MW's service region. Some outlets deliver hundreds of litres a day for domestic and stock use, others deliver more than 30 ML a day to large irrigation and commercial businesses.

 Water storages

32. Gravity is used to deliver water from the storages to the customers across the region. There are three pumped supply districts at Woorinen, Tresco and Nyah which combined represent around 1.5% of all water deliveries.

33. G-MW storages are open to the general public and easily accessible providing many wonderful recreational opportunities for local communities and visitors.

34. G-MW manages 16 water storages that can hold around 9,000,000 ML of water - that's around 70% of the total water storage capacity in the State of Victoria.

35. On behalf of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority G-MW owns and manages Dartmouth Dam, Lake Mulwala, Torrumbarry Weir and Mildura Weir and jointly owns Hume Dam with NSW.

36. Levels in dams and storages vary over the season, increasing in response to rainfall and falling as supplies are called on to meet customers' orders.

37. Large weirs within the irrigation system such as Yarrawonga Weir (Lake Mulwala), Torrumbarry and Goulburn Weir (Lake Nagambie) raise the water level so it can be diverted out of the river into irrigation supply networks under gravity. A weir's water level is quite constant throughout the season.

38. Dartmouth Dam and Lake Eildon are among Australia's five largest storages and represent 80% of the water storage capacity in northern Victoria.

39. Dartmouth's dam wall is 180 meters high and is Australia's highest earthen embankment.

40. Hydroelectriticy operations at our storages generate around 4,000 megawatt-hours of green energy - that's enough to service more than 13,000 households.

41. G-MW is one of Victoria's largest land managers with more than 100,000 hectares of public land at its storages.

42. G-MW is Victoria's largest inland boating authority responsible for managing boating and recreational activities across most of G-MW's storages.