Water supply servicing properties on Kulkyne, Ontario, and some intersecting streets to resume this afternoon.

Thank you for your understanding.

Due to an incident on Friday, water supply servicing properties on both Kulkyne, Ontario, and some intersecting streets is currently shut down.

There are some complexities to the fix required, requiring a bespoke part to be engineered, and the Trust team is working on solutions ASAP.

At this stage, it is anticipated that water supply will resume at some stage on Wednesday evening. An update will be provided if this timeline changes as well as when water supply resumes.

Thank you for your understanding.

On 15 May 2020, the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) has announced that the minimum projected Class 3 (High Security) and Class 8 opening allocation for the 2020-21 water year has been increased to 8 percent.

Despite this very low minimum opening allocation, improvements across the water year are also expected. How quickly and by how much allocations improve depends on future rainfall, where and when it occurs and how much runoff then makes its way into Southern Basin storages. Most inflows to the River Murray System historically occur between July and October, so the main inflow season is yet to arrive.

The full announcement and South Australia’s Water Allocation statement can be found on the DEW website here.

Primary Industries and Regions South Australia presents an online workshop designed to assist South Australian irrigators to gain confidence in successfully navigating the River Murray water market. This workshop will offer simple and practical strategies to assist irrigators in planning and achieving better outcomes for their businesses.

The workshop will specifically focus on the South Australian water market and be delivered by independent water market experts Marsden Jacob Associates. The workshop will address fundamental concepts, terms and topics, including exploring wider market opportunities for buying and selling across the South Australian, New South Wales and Victorian water markets.

Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Time: 12.30pm – 2.30pm ACST
Location: Online webinar
RSVP: Register to attend the event at
https://zoom.us/…/r…/2615886656322/WN_o53m6cHnRGSdGERARj9alQ or contact Tarsha McGregor, Project Officer by phone on 0428 105 396.

Since August 2019, the Trust Board and its staff have worked to seek a more workable private carryover policy for SA irrigators, and to have that improved policy applied retrospectively.

Private carryover was granted in April 2019 when the opening 2019-20 allocations were less than 50%. Under the policy adopted in February 2019, irrigators who conserved water in 2018-19 for later use lost the full economic value of that water when the 2019-20 allocations reached 100%.
The Trust considered that policy was unsustainable and has a negative economic impact on SA irrigators and their communities.

While improvements to the policy were announced by the Minister on 15 April 2020, the SA Government did not approve that the water conserved by irrigators in 2018-19 could be carried forward. This is extremely disappointing, particularly given the 2% 2020-21 minimum allocation announcement.

We ask the SA Government to clearly explain to our community who has benefitted from the conserved 2018-19 irrigators’ water.

The Trust sincerely thanks the community, including many who reside outside the Renmark irrigation district, who actively demonstrated their support to Government to improve the policy and apply it retrospectively. The Trust’s comprehensive submission to the Government review can be found here.

On 15 April 2020, the Department for Environment and Water (DEW) announced that the minimum projected Class 3 (High Security) and Class 8 opening allocation for the 2020-21 water year is 2 percent.

Despite this very low minimum opening allocation, improvements across the water year are also expected. How quickly and by how much allocations improve depends on future rainfall, where and when it occurs and how much runoff then makes its way into Southern Basin storages. Most inflows to the River Murray System historically occur between July and October, so the main inflow season is yet to arrive.

The full announcement and South Australia’s Water Allocation statement can be found on the DEW website here.

Due to COVID-19 uncertainties, the Annual Shutdown of Trust water supply for maintenance purposes (usually occurring in the first week of May) has been postponed until further notice. Please contact the Trust Office on (08) 8586 6911 with any queries.

You are invited to register for the 2020-21 Irrigation Season Outlook for the River Murray webinar presented by Primary Industries and Regions SA and the Department for Environment and Water, to be held THIS WEDNESDAY 8 APRIL.

The webinar will feature River Murray water resources outlook information presented by the Department for Environment and Water. Respected water market experts Marsden Jacob Associates will present a water market outlook and demonstrate the Commonwealth funded Waterflow™ application, which brings together water market information from a number of industry sources, and also offers a water market university.

There will be an opportunity for participants to ask questions of the presenters during the webinar. The webinar will also be recorded, so if you are unable to attend but would like to watch the webinar later, please register so we can let you know when the recording is available.

Date: Wednesday 8 April 2020
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm
Location: Online webinar
RSVP: Register to attend the event at https://login.redbackconferencing.com.au/landers/page/cd8df8
or contact Rachael Kelly, Program Manager via email to Rachael.kelly@sa.gov.au or by phone on 08 8429 0368.

To best continue serving the community, the Trust Office is now closed to the public due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) precautionary measures.

As an essential service, the Trust will continue to operate, so please call the Office on (08) 8586 6911 with any queries. Account payments can be made online via EFT, or over the phone. Water related incidents or concerns (i.e. pipe breaks/outages) can be directed to the (08) 8586 6050 number.

Government will soon make a decision on the proposed private carryover policy changes and your support is urgently needed.

If you support the proposed changes to the private carryover policy and applying it retrospectively, please call local MP Tim Whetstone’s office on 8582 4230 this week and voice your support for the proposed policy change AND its retrospective application.

If the proposed policy changes are implemented and it is applied retrospectively, irrigators may gain access to their private carryover water put aside in 2018-19 that was lost due to the current policy when allocations reached 100% in 2019-20.