The Northern Victoria resource manager has announced seasonal irrigation determinations, in all systems, have remained unchanged.
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Mark Bailey said seasonal determinations in the Murray, Goulburn and Loddon systems would stay at 100 per cent of high‑reliability water shares (HRWS).
The Murray, Goulburn and Loddon systems still have no low reliability water shares.
Dr Bailey said there had been continued improvement in water resource availability in the Murray system, but little change in the Goulburn system since the last update, in mid December.
“December inflows into the Murray system were higher than estimated and the inflows forecast for January have increased,” Dr Bailey said.
“These improvements have reduced the shortfall volume needed in the Murray system to meet all system operating needs and high-reliability water shares in 2017/18 to 110GL.”
Australian Dairy Farmers Murray-Darling Basin taskforce chairman Daryl Hoey said low reliability water shares would allow primary producers to plan with greater certainty.
“The gap is getting narrower, and all we need to have is a reasonably big rain event in the upper catchment, for that to happen,” Mr Hoey said. Low reliability shares would allow for carryover, into next season.
“They might be able to start up their autumn pastures earlier, or be able to start up more, if they had access to more water,” Mr Hoey said. Water was currently trading at between $70-80ML.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) also reported tributaries in the upper Murray catchments slowly receded, last week, before rainfall delivered some short lived-rises.
Hinnomunjie, on the Mitta Mitta River upstream of Dartmouth, decreased to 550 ML/day before peaking near 1,700 ML/day.
Similarly, Biggara on the upper Murray receded to 540 ML/day before peaking near 1,600 ML/day.
MDBA total storage fell by 124GL, to 7,071 GL (82 per cent capacity).
Dartmouth is about 78 per cent. The release, measured at Colemans gauge, remained at 300 ML/day, but was scheduled to be increased from Friday.
The storage volume at Hume fell below 90 per cent for the first time since the spring floods, to be at 87.9 per cent capacity on Thursday, holding 2640GL.
Hot weather contributed to higher than anticipated irrigation diversions from Lake Mulwala.