Ms Corless said Lower Murray Water’s irrigation allocation had increased 3?per cent on December 1 and the authority was hopeful allocations would reach the forecast level of 28?per cent.

Mildura’s signature street Deakin Avenue features wide centre medians of lawns, trees and garden beds.

Ms Corless said the community was concerned the trees and lawns would not survive and, with the business community leading the way, had gone to the open market to keep the street green.

“We helped by trading that water to our bulk entitlement and then traded it back to the city,” Ms Corless said.

Mildura Council communications officer Matt Novacevski said the council was taking the lead in terms of reducing water use in the city.

The council has slashed its water use by 30?per cent over the past two years.

The council is three years into its five-year sustainable water use plan and is on track to meet its targets under the plan.

Mr Novacevski says the reductions are the result of a number of measures undertaken to make water use at public facilities, council buildings, parks and gardens and recreation reserves more efficient.

Love of water runs deep in Slater family

MORE often than not, the Murray River is a family affair.

The Slater family of Ballarat is a typical example.

Cec Slater has been making annual pilgrimages — cod opening, Christmas and Easter — to the river from around Picnic Point to Lock 7, below Mildura, for at least 55 years.

He used to make the trips with his father and uncles.

Now he is the elder statesman and his son Lindsay is continuing the tradition.

We found Cec, Lindsay and Lindsay’s partner, Roslyn Korosec, camped on a sweeping bend just a few hundred metres above where the Murray and Murrumbidgee become one.

They were there for the opening of the Murray cod season, but most of all they were there simply to relax and enjoy Australia’s greatest river and its attendant majestic, and some not so majestic, river red gums.

Lindsay is a concrete maintenance worker with Ballarat Council while Cec is a retired forest worker and logger.

Within 24 hours of their arrival Cec, Lindsay and Roslyn had caught eight yellowbelly.

Lindsay had also caught and released several cod, up to 45cm, well under the new minimum legal length in NSW of 60cm.

“I have been coming here for 30 years,” Lindsay said.

“This is as good as I have seen the river in years. The fact there is a bit of water coming down the ’Bidgee is helping.”

Lindsay said his best cod was 38lb, which he caught, and released, three years ago.

Cec could recall his earliest trips to the Murray at Picnic Point, upstream of Barmah, when he was a kid 55 years ago.

The river had not changed much, he said.

Diversity keeps acreage running

FOR Glenda and Ralph Gallace and their family, water and diversification has, and always will be, the key to the survival of family’s enterprises.

This Robinvale family depends on water from the Murray River to sustain their olive, citrus, grape and carrot crops.

And rain to give them a wheat crop.

Mrs Gallace says the family owns a total of 5600ha, most of which is their “wheat paddock”

They also own more than 240ha close to the Murray River about 7km from Robinvale where the family produces olives, grapes, citrus fruit and carrots.

Mrs Gallace said they purchased the olive grove in 1983, when it was owned by margarine producer Meadow Lea.

“Initially we also grew stone fruits but 10 years ago the market dropped off so we pushed the trees down,” Mrs Gallace said.

“We were also growing some carrots so we increased our planting and also planted grapes.

“Over the years we have also reduced the size of our citrus grove to about 16ha.”

Mrs Gallace said unless a grower had contracts with a supermarket chain it was getting harder to sell their products because the fruiterers and independent buyers were disappearing or were already gone.

Supermarkets also dictated price and the size of the product to be supplied.

Mrs Gallace said they did not have any supermarket contracts but they supplied carrots to a processor in Merbein who exported the juice to Japan.

The Gallace family grows and markets its

olive under the Robinvale Estate Olives label.

The original olive trees had been planted in 1943 by a company called Olive Home, which in turn sold the grove to Meadow Lea.

“We have pushed out all the oil varieties and planted more eating varieties and today we have about 120ha.

“This used to be one of the bigger groves, but not now. When Olive Home had it, it was the biggest grove in the southern hemisphere.”

The company produced a variety of table olives and a wide range of olive products, including dressings, oils, soaps and lotions.

For the family the Murray is their lifeblood.

“We have to irrigate because what we grow likes water,” Mrs Gallace said.

“The water is there, but you have to pay for it these days.

“Because of the cost we have stopped watering about 40ha of olive trees. The trees are still alive but they will die if they don’t get rain.

“The trees we have stopped watering are the original trees but they were not producing what the market wants — the market today wants big eating olives.”

The company also had 240ha of wine grapes and 40ha of table grapes and about 16ha of citrus trees.

Mrs Gallace said that survival depended not only on water, but also the

ability to keep changing what they produced so the family could keep up with and meet market demands.

Mrs Gallace said fertiliser had now become their major cost, with the cost tripling in recent years.

“But if you don’t fertilise you don’t produce a crop”

Mrs Gallace said their three sons worked on the property while their daughter Kim worked on developing new products and marketing them.

Drought disaster looms

NORTHERN Victoria is on the brink of disaster.

If the drought does not break soon the region’s fruit, vegetable and grape industries could be decimated.

The severity of situation was outlined in a report to Mildura Council last year.

The council’s chief executive officer Phil Pearce prepared the report after Goulburn Murray Water warned there would be little or no water for irrigation next year.

Mr Pearce said the Lower Murray Water Irrigation Region stretched from Nyah to the South Australian border and was most exposed because its economy was fundamentally based on permanent plantings.

In 2006 the region had 41,915?ha of fruit trees and 6085?ha of vegetable plantings.

It produced 12?per cent of Australia’s fruit, vegetables and grapes.

Mr Pearce’s report highlighted the ramifications of continuing low irrigation allocations.

The report said that in a worst case scenario if all 42,000?ha of permanent plantings needed to be ­replaced, the cost would be an estimated $840?million.

Continuing low water allocations and reduced production through vineyards and orchards being “mothballed” could result in the loss of up to 4000 jobs in the region.