Allocation increase for the Campaspe system

Allocation Data

Seasonal allocations for Goulburn-Murray Water customers on 15 Dec 2010:

Further Information

Goulburn-Murray Water (G-MW), Resource Manager for northern Victorian water systems, today announced an increased allocation for the Campaspe system. Allocations in all other systems remain unchanged.

The allocations of low-reliability water shares (LRWS) in the Campaspe system has increased from 52% LRWS to 100% LRWS, and is in addition to 100% HRWS.

"Lake Eppalock filled in the period since the last assessment, which provided enough resource to allocate 100% of low-reliability water shares in the Campaspe system." said G-MW's Acting Resource Manager, Mark Bailey. "The rainfall of recent weeks has suppressed irrigation demand across all systems, and the volumes held in customers' accounts are the highest at this time of year for over a decade thanks to carryover and allocations made this season. The rain has also contributed to ongoing high river levels across northern Victoria. Inflows to Lake Eildon and Dartmouth Reservoir are contributing to the reserves in the Goulburn and Murray systems for the 2011/12 season, which must be completed before any low-reliability water shares can be allocated."

"The combination of high water availability to irrigators, very low demand to date and the fact that all storages downstream of Lake Eildon and Dartmouth Reservoir are full and unable to contribute to the conservation of additional reserve means that the shortfall to making low-reliability water share allocations is still large in the Goulburn and Murray systems," said Dr Bailey. "It remains unlikely that low-reliability water share allocations will be made this season unless some of these factors change significantly in the future."Customers participating in the water trading market are reminded that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has relaxed the rule controlling allocation trade from upstream of the Barmah Choke to downstream users. The ability to trade across the Barmah Choke will be regularly reviewed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the relaxation may be lifted at any time during the season.

The next allocation announcement will be issued on Monday 17 January 2011.