Carryover Information Sheet

CARRYOVER INFORMATION SHEET FOR G-MW IRRIGATORS

1. What is carryover?
Currently, any allocated water that entitlement holders do not use in the current season is lost to them as individuals and falls back into the following season's communal pool.

Carryover will give entitlement holders like domestic and stock customers, irrigators, urban authorities and the environment the ability to carry forward unused water allocated or purchased in 2006-07 to the 2007-08 season. Irrigators will have the flexibility to use water in 2007-08 instead of this season, if they believe they could get a better return from it next season.

2. Why is carryover proposed?

The carryover proposal has been instigated at the request of some irrigators in order to give entitlement holders - especially those with vines and trees - extra choices in the face of starting allocations next July that may be at all-time lows (horticultural crops must avoid stress at specific times like fruit set for this year's crop and bud set for next year's crop, and being able to carryover or buy water to use at these key times in the coming spring may help to avoid crop failure).

3. When is carryover proposed?

This carryover proposal is a once-off drought response measure supported by the Minister for Water following consideration by the Water Market and Irrigation Reforms Steering Committee.

The carryover proposal will be in action for the next irrigation season starting in July 2007. Currently, no decision has been made about extending carryover into seasons beyond 2007-2008.

4. Where is carryover proposed?

Carryover will only apply in the Murray and Goulburn systems, not the smaller Ovens, Broken, Campaspe, Loddon and Bullarook systems (these systems either have no allocation or storage systems to make carryover possible).

5. How does carryover work?

• Irrigators will have the ability to carry forward a volume of water which is a percentage of their water right or licence, no matter what their seasonal allocations are.
• The rules for carryover will include:

- Entitlement holders can carry forward water against both their water right/licensed volume (which become high-reliability water shares in July 2007) and against sales water (to become low-reliability water shares)

- Entitlement holders can carry forward up to 30% of the volume of their water right/licensed volume plus up to 30% of the volume of their new low-reliability water share, with;

- a deduction of around 5% made for evaporation.

- Water carried over to the following season can be sourced from unused water within an entitlement holders account, or the entitlement holder may purchase temporary water to top up their carryover volume within the above limits

- For 2007-08, the volume carried over plus the seasonal allocations cannot be more than 100% of the water entitlement.

- Once seasonal allocation (plus volume carried over) reaches 100%, then allocations can be made against low-reliability water shares (sales water until 1 July 2007) using the approach explained above for any carryover water.

- There is no guarantee on delivery of water carried over, because delivery depends on there being enough water to meet river and irrigation district delivery losses. If delivery is not possible, the carried over water will remain in an allocation account. It can be traded to other areas where delivery is possible, or kept until delivery can be made.

Maximum carryover volume based upon a 100 ML water entitlement, i.e. water right, licensed volume or D&S allowance:

Examples

If a Nyah irrigator, who has 100ML entitlement, uses 75ML and the end of season allocation is 95% - how much water can they carry over?

They will have 20ML left in their 'water account', and this will be deemed to be carried over into their water account for 2007/08.

In addition, they could choose to buy another 10ML of temporary water to top up their 'water account' to the maximum carryover amount of 30% of their 100ML entitlement.

Similarly, a Torrumbarry irrigator, with a 100ML entitlement, uses 75ML and the end of season allocation is 95% - how much water can they carry over?

Again, they will have 20ML left in their 'water account', and this will be deemed to be carried over into their water account for 2007/08. They could also choose to buy another 10ML of temporary water to top up their 'water account' to the maximum carryover amount of 30% of their 100ML of high-reliability water entitlement.

In addition, they may also purchase up to 14.4ML of temporary water to carry over against their low reliability (sales) water share (30% of 48ML entitlement) for 2007/2008.

A Murray Valley irrigator, who has 100ML entitlement, uses 50ML and the end of season allocation is 95% - how much water can they carry over?

They will have 45ML left in their ‘water account'. Of this they may carry over 30ML against their water right/licensed volume (high-reliability water shares) and 14.4ML against sales water (low-reliability water shares). Hence they may carryover a total of 44.4ML, the sum of the maximum carryover of 30% against water right and 30% against sales.