An influx of Government and Government Agency staff visited Wilcannia on Monday 29th July to look at the old weir, proposed site for the new weir and meet with local organisations and the Shire. Included in the group was former Western Lands Commissioner and passionate Wilcannia and Darling River advocate Geoff Wise.

The meeting demonstrated the complexity of tying in the Wilcannia Weir project with the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) Basin Plan objectives, Federal and State government priorities and relationships and allocating funding from a range of buckets.

$4 million has been spent by the Feds. So far from the Northern Basin Toolkit funding.

MDBA personnel were well aware of the just announced NSW Independent Review into the Wilcannia Weir project. (See page 3).

Locals spoke passionately about the river being the cornerstone of the community and the strong connections all residents, regardless of race or background have with the river.

Graphs giving the flow conditions at Wilcannia over recent decades showed how totally different these are from the long term average. They demonstrate that the Wilcannia reach is one of the Basins’ most severely compromised. Questions were asked regarding the apparent double standards used for modelling during the Environmental Impact Statement assessment, where two separate assessment approaches were selectively used. This raised the vexed issue of water licenses and the concentration of licenses at Bourke. This was made forcefully in relation to the lack of progress in addressing A Class access provisions, where water not used one year can be banked to use in the future.

The Federal Government representatives made it clear that they have insisted that the NSW Government needs to ensure that everything needs to be looked at to ensure the MDBA Basin Plan objectives are being met.

Much was said on the change of the weir design and the change in the NSW Government focus in quoting town water supply as the prime objective, with token references to cultural connections and improved fish migration. The logic behind the statement from NSW that the revised (4 metre) Plan…has the ability to install gates and raise the weir height if required in the future” was not provided to the meeting.

The meeting closed with the tabling of actions asking the MDBA and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holders to:

• Insist that the significant Basin Plan objectives are part of the Weir project 
• The MDBA have a representative on the Independent Review of the EIS process 
• Serious consideration and influence be given on how the NSW EIS assessment process should be carried out 
• Question if the Basin Plan is getting value for money with: 
  a) the new proposed 4 metre high weir 
  b) the requested appropriately designed 5 metre weir 
  c) the assessed need for Biodiversity offsets 
• Review the relevance of modelling when historical data does not reflect current flow behaviour 
• Encourage review of A Class extractions at Bourke 
• Advocate for the retirement of Intersecting Streams licenses

This article appeared in the Wilcannia News, August 2024.