Water Restrictions Eased to Stage 1 - for the Murray System

10 December 2007

Goulburn Valley Water has announced that water restrictions for towns supplied from the Murray system, including Barmah, Cobram, Katamatite, Nathalia, Numurkah, Picola, Strathmerton, Wunghnu, and Yarroweyah will be eased from Stage 4 to Stage 1 effective Friday 14 December 2007.

Goulburn Valley Water’s Managing Director, Mr Laurie Gleeson said that the Corporation has been able to ease water restrictions on the Murray System because Goulburn Valley Water can temporarily transfer water from the Goulburn system (Lake Eildon).

“Last year we made a business decision to carryover around 4,450 megalitres of water on the Goulburn system to use this year if the dry conditions continued,” he said. “Inflows to Lake Eildon this year have been significantly higher than in 2006 and as a result, the Corporation is able to transfer some of this carryover water to ease water restrictions for our Murray towns to Stage 1.”

“We have transferred some of this water already which allowed us to grant the general exemption to Stage 4, said Mr Gleeson. “Now that we are certain that we have the capacity on the Goulburn system we will now transfer the additional water required to ease back to Stage 1 water restrictions.”

Mr Gleeson said that the Corporation has a fundamental service obligation to provide water to its customers if the resources are available. “We recognise that many jobs are based around domestic and commercial gardens, including nurseries, lawn mowing and garden maintenance businesses, and that water restrictions impact on these jobs,” he said. “This was a key consideration in making the decision to ease water restrictions.”

"Further, many homeowners have made significant investments in gardens and lawns and value this amenity highly", said Mr Gleeson.  "These gardens provide social and health benefits, particularly for our active senior citizens."

Mr Gleeson said that the Corporation also recognised that sportsgrounds, recreation and park facilities are vital community assets that require water and that the cost to the community of re-establishing these assets, if they are lost, is enormous.

Chairman of the Board of Goulburn Valley Water, Mr Don Cummins, said he and his fellow directors were mindful of the low allocation of irrigation water entitlement on the Murray system. However, the amount of water used for domestic purposes is a very small percentage of that required for agriculture and having towns on harsh water restrictions would only cause harm to urban customers without helping farmers.

“The Board is charged with supplying a reliable service to customers as is possible and this decision is in keeping with that responsibility,” said Mr Cummins.

Key elements of Stage 1 water restrictions for private gardens are outlined below:

RESIDENTIAL and COMMERCIAL GARDENS and LAWNS

• Manual watering systems (the kind you turn on or off by hand) can only be used to water gardens and lawns between 6am-8am and 7pm-9pm on alternate days

• Automatic watering systems (the kind you set to turn on and off automatically) can only be used to water gardens and lawns between midnight-4am on alternate days.

• Hand-held hoses with a trigger nozzle, a bucket or watering can may be used at any time.

Alternate days means that properties with an odd street number may operate a watering system between the set hours on odd numbered days of the month and properties with even numbers or no number on even numbered days of the month. All properties can water on the 29^th day of February and 31^st day of the month.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank our customers for their excellent response to water restrictions over recent months and urge everyone to continue to conserve water wherever possible,” said Mr Gleeson.

For full details on Stage 1 water restrictions please see our Water Restrictions page or contact the Corporation’s 24 hour customer service centre on Free Call 1800 45 45 00.