Manjimup farmer John Kilrain has asked for clarity on the SFIS water source, warns of future water trading

A leading South West farmer and chair of the Manjimup Water Security Group has commended Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan for meeting with all parties involved in the divisive Southern Forests Irrigation Scheme, but urged her to make sure water trading does not develop in the town. John Kilrain welcomed his meeting with Ms MacTiernan last month, which was based around the updated numbers for the SFIS water modelling, a copy of which has been provided to the Manjimup Water Security Group. The updated water levels behind the SFIS saw a huge drop in the available resource for farmers who have bought into, or were considering buying, into the scheme. The original SFIS planned to pump water from the middle Donnelly River to a 15-gigalitre dam at Record Brook which would then by distributed through more than 250km of pipelines to about 100 farmers who bought into the scheme throughout the Manjimup and Pemberton area. The farmers who bought into the scheme were sold on 9.3GL of water being available very year, but after an independent review by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation it has been found that only 3.9GL would be available to producers. Mr Kilrain said the danger with the updated numbers meant there was no guarantee the water would be coming from the Warren-Donnelly catchment and instead could involve water being taken off of farms and put into the scheme. “It was quite clear that Minister McTiernan’s staff had not told her where the 3.9 gigalitres of water was coming from,” he said. “It was made quite clear in the report that in fact 50 to 75 per cent of the water is coming off the farmland. “This was not relayed to the SFIS subscribers and it should have been as it clearly means (the SFIS scheme) were taking water of one farmer to sell to another.” Mr Kilrain said the Manjimup Water Security Group was eager to see what the State Government’s next move was and hoped it did not involve water trading. “We look forward to the Minister’s next move but this must not impact one farmer against another, that has been the problem from the start,” he said.