Wednesday’s front page
G-MW not ready to act yet on Ovens, King systems
Written by By steven burke.
GOULBURN-Murray Water (G-MW) will seek more feedback before it makes a final decision on water trading rules for the Ovens and King system.
As revealed in Wednesday’s Chronicle, a review has recommended trading water out of the Ovens and King system should not be allowed.
Acting manager of diversions and compliance at G-MW, Barry O’Donnell, said the authority was yet to make a decision on the review.
"Really the review was about what options there could be and then getting feedback on the potential options and finding out what views are out there," he said.
The review also proposes creating a new trading zone downstream of the Ovens and King rivers and allowing trades of water into that zone from the King and upper Ovens, as well as using a mechanism called Limited Term Transfers to allow trade of spill water from the King and upper Ovens zone into the new lower Ovens zone.
Mr O’Donnell said implementing the recommendations would be a major project.
"If we do need to implement the recommendations considerable work would need to be done," he said.
"Some of the exercises would be quite costly.
"We’ve considered our current pricing and are very understanding of the different views across the valleys.
"A number of people would like to trade their entitlements and there’s a number of competing issues out there."
In terms of implementing any recommendations, Mr O’Donnell said more feedback would be sought.
"We’ve already received a number of submissions and responses," he said.
"We’ll summarise those into a paper for the water services committee and from there a decision will be made as to what are the next steps and whether we need more information."
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