More water buybacks in northern basin
The federal government has opened two new voluntary water buyback tenders amongst the tightly held water licences in the Northern Murray-Darling Basin.
According to the tender details, quietly issued last week, the Commonwealth is seeking to purchase 8.48GL from water holders in the Condamine Balonne, running down from the Queensland to the NSW border.
The government is seeking 5.1GL in the Border Rivers catchment after failing to fill its tender on the last attempt in 2023.
The federals government is hoping to secure its requirements in these catchments after failing to find interested sellers in previous attempts to meet its targets under the ‘Bridging the Gap’ program.
If water is purchased this time it will go towards meeting the Sustainable Diversion Limits in the northern Murray-Darling Basin as part of the Basin Plan.
This is a separate effort to the current buybacks rolling out under Labor’s ‘Restoring Our Rivers’ reforms seeking to return an additional 450GL per year of environmental flows to the nation’s largest river network by 2027.
Interest from potential sellers from the Northern Basins tender, scheduled to close on November 13, may not match the recently expired tender in the Southern Murray Darling-Basin where it is believed farmers swamped the Commonwealth with offers to sell entitlements against the target of 70GL. […]
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