Water Management
Snowy Initiative
The Snowy Initiative or the Water for Rivers program has been established to achieve significant improvements in environmental flows into the Snowy and Murray river systems. The Commonwealth, New South Wales and Victorian Governments committed $375 million over eight years to fund and commission water efficiency projects to provide the environmental flows. The NSW Government has invested $150M.
The targets include returning 212,000 megalitres, or 21% of the average natural flow, to the Snowy River and 70,000 megalitres to the Murray River in a staged approach over 10 years. The first environmental release to the Snowy was made in August 2002. By June 2008, 140.5 GL of water had been recovered, of this 115.7 GL came from water recovery projects within NSW.
The $29 million Barren Box Swamp project is saving up to 20,000 megalitres per year through reducing evaporation losses. The project involved constructing embankments to divide the 3,200 hectare swamp into three parts and reducing the total surface area of the section used for water supply. It will rehabilitate more than half of the swamp area back to an ephemeral wetland and improve water quality.
The following table lists the completed NSW projects:
| Volume (GL) of water recovered for the environment in NSW under Snowy - Water for Rivers | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| - Forest Creek stage 1 | 11.3 | |||
| - Barren Box swamp | n/a | 20 | ||
| - Forest Creek stage 2 | 15.0 | 8.4 | ||
| - Coleambally Channel Automation | 3.5 | |||
| - Water purchase | 35.5 | |||
| - On-Farm Reconfiguration | 22.0 | |||
| Annual Total | 11.3 | 20 | 18.5 | 65.9 |
| Cumulative total | 11.3 | 31.3 | 49.8 | 115.7 |