New modelling behind the Southern Forests Irrigation Scheme shows massive drop in available water

WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan has handed down the updated figures behind the contentious Southern Forests Irrigation Scheme after meeting stakeholders in Manjimup last month. The environmental study into the SFIS began last year when the State Government put the scheme up for review by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation due to intense scrutiny of the project modelling. 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 the roughly 100 farmers who bought into the scheme located throughout the Manjimup and Pemberton area. The updated numbers, which form part of the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation environmental study into the SFIS, showed a significant drop in the amount of water which can be used by farmers in the future. “There has obviously been a significant reduction in the estimation of what the average annual supply that could be gleaned from this project and that has gone down from 9.3 gigalitres to 3.9 gigalitres,” she said. “There is no doubt that those revised figures will have to be taken into account while we work out our way forward.” Ms MacTiernan said despite the massive drop in projected water levels available for agriculture, the State Government was not withdrawing any of the $19 million pledged to the scheme. The minister said the report clearly showed that with a drying climate it was important to act to protect the water which was already there and would fall over the coming years. “What has become clear is that this report does not tell us that we should do nothing because what is it telling us is that the climate impacts are potentially going to be very severe and that we do need to protect Manjimup which is such an important horticultural precinct for WA’s own food supply,” she said. “From now I think the focus is probably going to be on making sure that we have got enough water to give continuity of supply even in the increasing year of low rainfall that we will be expecting.” Ms MacTiernan said now the new modelling figures had been given to the Southern Forests Irrigation Cooperative and the Manjimup Shire she hoped some headway could be made in the coming months with the scheme. “We have made it very clear that we want to over the next couple of months make some decisions,” she said. “It is a pretty heavy technical document and we needed to get it to people and give them an opportunity to look at it and get back to us.”