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Government no to Thomson water pleaThe State Labor Government has rejected pleas to stop siphoning environmental flows from the Thomson River for Melbourne. By Kevin Balshaw - 5th February 2010 - Back to News The State Labor Government has rejected pleas to stop siphoning environmental flows from the Thomson River for Melbourne.
The Minister for Water, Tim Holding, has told Eastern Victoria MP, Philip Davis, the diversion of 20 billion litres a year of environmental flow from the Thomson to Melbourne will continue as one of the "necessary steps to secure Melbourne’s water storages".
Mr Davis said the minister had disclosed in a written statement that the Government is relying on an emergency drought reserve in the Thomson Dam as its only safeguard against an environmental crisis affecting the river.
He said the drought reserve was intended as an emergency supply for farmers in the Macalister irrigation district and at times part of the reserve had been used to supplement supplies to irrigators at Werribee and Bacchus Marsh.
The minister had been totally misleading in his assertion that the drought reserve existed to manage short-term environmental risks in the Thomson River, Mr Davis said.
In a written statement, tabled in Parliament in response to Mr Davis’s complaint about the diversion of the river flow, Minister Holding said he had "established a drought reserve to manage any potential long-term risks to the Australian Grayling in the Thomson River, which will be used to deliver critical spawning flows and allow fish passage if natural high flow events do not occur".
The minister added: "Additional protection is provided to manage short-term environmental risks such as poor water quality, with comprehensive monitoring and emergency contingency plans that provide specific triggers for scientifically designed emergency releases to manage risks to significant species."
Mr Holding claimed the Government had been "forced to introduce temporary measures" to supplement Melbourne’s water system.
He asserted a decision had been taken to divert additional environmental flow from the Thomson River rather than the Yarra River because the environmental risks for the Thomson were considered manageable.
The Government doubled the annual rate of diversion from the Thomson to 20 billion litres from last year.
"The minister’s convoluted response itself illustrates his difficulty in justifying this further water heist from Gippsland," Mr Davis said.
"Further, he has failed to acknowledge the risk to the environmental state of the river as a whole or to the Gippsland Lakes.
"It is totally unconvincing, and no one in Gippsland will for a moment hold any faith in the minister’s assurance that ‘environmental flows will be returned to the Thomson River once Melbourne’s water supplies are secure’.
"The common experience is that once the water is taken away, it is never returned."
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: kevin.balshaw@parliament.vic.gov.au
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