UP TO 50 per cent of the irrigated agricultural land in northern Victoria between Benalla and Swan Hill will have to be dried off to bring in the Northern Victorian Irrigation Renewal Project (NVIRP) under its $1 billion budget.
A report in the Sunday Age yesterday revealed that, even as Premier John Brumby was assuring Victorians in late 2008 that the project would deliver 225 gigalitres of water savings, cabinet had refused to endorse the original business case for the project because the claimed water savings from lining the channel network could not be achieved within its $1,004 billion budget.
Victoria’s “water cabinet” – Premier Brumby, Treasurer John Lenders, and Water Minister Tim Holding – finally approved an amended business case in June last year.
It suggested that the extra savings could only be achieved by shrinking the system, by cutting off or reducing the capacity of some of the system’s 6300km of irrigation channels, alienating large areas of irrigated land.
For more of this story, purchase your copy of Monday's Sunraysia Daily 7/6/2010.
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