As Flood Moves Southward, Water Fight Intensifies In Murray-Darling River Basin

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As the flood crisis around Rockhampton and the southern Queensland town of St George remained critical, NSW towns began preparing for a second wave of flood devastation as waters flowed across the border. The Darling River at Bourke, in northwest NSW, is expected to peak at about 12.3m, with major flooding. Mildura, on the Victorian border with NSW, has been told to expect floods within weeks and storage facilities in South Australia have begun releasing water in preparation for more flows.

The bickering among Murray-Darling states continued yesterday as the Queensland, NSW and Victorian governments rejected giving South Australian irrigators above-allocation entitlements for the rest of the financial year, insisting the state remain within a 67 per cent cap it negotiated during severe drought conditions early last year.

Opposition water spokesman Barnaby Joyce - the Nationals senator who lives in the flood-threatened town of St George - yesterday said the abundant amount of environmental water flowing within the formerly parched river system had allayed the anxieties of communities and conservationists. He backed calls to delay the reform timetable if it meant a better basin plan could be delivered: "You have a window of opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to bring about the changes that both sides of parliament have promised. The thing you want to avoid more than anything else is a bad plan."

The Murray-Darling rescue plan sparked a political crisis last year when the MDBA released a guide recommending buying back 3000-4000 gigalitres of water from the allocations of farm irrigators - or up to 37 per cent of entitlements - in an effort to protect the basin. Under its original timeline, the final basin plan was to be introduced into parliament at the end of this year but a raft of committees established on the heels of a furious community backlash have mired the reform process.

At community meetings in rural towns, MDBA chairman Michael Taylor was confronted by angry locals who burned copies of his report in a sign of their fury at the proposed water buybacks.

The backlash prompted the government to announce an inquiry by independent MP Tony Windsor into the socio-economic effects of the plan on basin communities.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/floods-deepen-murray-basin-feud/story-fn59niix-1225982660097