Mary Basin Water Plan

The latest Mary basin water plan was released last week after 3 years of development. Several Mary plans have been developed in the past 20 years with new elements added each time. Most importantly for dairy farmers in the Mary valley, this plan has converted previous area based licences into volumetric licences.

During the first half of the plan’s development, farmers were not fully engaged in the process. Many farmers probably didn’t understand how important this plan is for their farm and the need to be critically involved. When the draft plan was released in February 2023, many farmers were not happy with the allocations they were given and needed assistance. eastAUSmilk got involved and we engaged Ian Johnson to help as he had done a few years before in the Upper Burnett area.

A lot of work was required to figure out what had happened including the negative impact of each member. In the end, eastAUSmilk helped all our members develop individual applications relating to their farm to justify a reasonable water allocation. This work resulted in most of our members getting a good allocation from the plan. Some farmers still do not have a reasonable allocation and are looking at options of what to do next.

I encourage all farmers to take the development of water plans extremely seriously. When they are being developed in your area, get heavily involved and if you are an eastAUSmilk member ask for our help immediately. And if you ever notice something on your licence or water bill that doesn’t look right ask for help.

Unfortunately in the past, government has done things like dictate baseless volumetric allocations and have consequently been unwilling to change them. If this happens to you, complain immediately and well before a plan is developed. This happened to a farmer in the Mary who is being forced under the plan to live with less than half the water he requires on a farm.

Eric Danzi, eastAUSmilk CEO