South Australia in full crisis mode as whole Murray river unlikely to get 1 500 gigalitres flow: allocations of 16 per cent

Kay Maywald, Minister for Water Security, answering a question in the House of Assembly, South Australia, 11 September 2007, from Adrian Pederick (Hammond) – who asked if the the increase in allocation (allocations of 16 per cent) mean that the state is getting 1 500 gigalitres across the border in River Murray inflows, Kay Maywald said the whole Murray river was unlikely to get 1 500 gigalitres flow.

If flow allows: “…Any further announcement beyond that made in August would require 1 500 gigalitres in total to flow into the system, not into South Australia. In actual fact, even under average flows, we are unlikely to get 1 500 gigalitres into South Australia this year…the full calculation of the August figures now gives us 120 gigalitres rather than the 102 gigalitres we anticipated in the third week of August. In the third week of August, when we provided the resource information to the River Murray Advisory Committee, we had 102 gigalitres to allocate, and that resulted in 30 gigalitres for carryover water and also 13 per cent for allocation. We now have 120 gigalitres, which the Murray-Darling Basin Commission has confirmed is available to us for allocation, and that has enabled us to take the allocation up to 16 per cent”.

Erisk Net, 17/9/2007