Can Water Allocation Buyback Schemes be Equitable for Impacted Communities? - Water and Agriculture: Sustainability, Markets and Policies - page 112

critical first step only, to be achieved by 2009. 2 There is visible evidence of its poor state
of health; river red gums in wetlands and on flood plains are in decline and dying, and an
ongoing dredging programme has now been in place for about three years to keep its
mouth to the ocean open; so poor is the outflow that the mouth has sanded up.

Over the last 80 years, the river has been highly modified, all in the name of
economic development, but with little consideration to its ongoing health and
sustainability, both environmentally and economically. Weirs and locks were installed to
allow a river boat industry to ply its water ways in earlier times, dams have been
constructed to ensure summer water for irrigation, and a barrage was constructed at the
mouth to prevent the ingress of saline water into the lower lake system.

Its hydrology is complex and highly modified; its interaction with local groundwater
systems adds a further complexity. In some areas, the riverbed is a recharge zone for
local groundwater systems. Exploitation of the river fed aquifers has added a further
complication as groundwater extractions for economic purposes has led to some double-
counting of water allocations, or a 'double loss' to the river. In other regions, saline
groundwater naturally discharges into the main river channel; this discharge is in addition
to the drainage discharges induced by irrigation activity.

With governments now agreeing that 500 GL should be returned as environmental
flows to the river as a first step, the decision on how this is to occur is still the subject of
much debate and the purchase of water allocations is considered by many to be necessary
to recover the required volumes. The mechanics of how this should occur is unclear, but
it is generally considered that it would simply be a purchase of the water direct from
irrigators at a fair market price. Whilst irrigators may receive 'fair' and 'just' value for
'their' property right, the impacts for the communities that service the irrigators and that
have been built up, in response to market signals, around the economic activity of that
water allocation, need to also be considered.

Is there a more equitable approach to diverting water from one clearly defined
economic activity to an environmental benefit, one which supports the social and
economic fabric of small irrigation communities in making the necessary changes? This
problem is not peculiar to the River Murray, but could equally apply to other over-
allocated water resources.

Water as a property right

From a policy standpoint, Australian governments have been developing management
strategies and water markets to achieve the outcomes Australians need to reach social,
environmental and economic goals. Since 1994, the Australian state governments have
separated water property rights from the land and acknowledged the environment as a
legitimate user of water resources, and therefore potentially an important participant in
water markets/ 3 While this system is not yet ideal, with inconsistencies between

2.

Beyond that point, the SA Government has urged for a target of 1 500 GL by 2018.

3. South Australia separated water property rights from land in 1983.