Caught between a rock and a hard place: Why, under the current ‘rules’ and despite the recent bushfire, the Wannon River and its resident threatened species can never win
Background
Back in June, I shared the story of the belated refusal of NGT’s request of the Victorian Government (submitted five months earlier) to consider altering the regular operation of the Wannon Diversions this year, in response to the impact of the Grampians bushfires on the Wannon River in the National Park. To refresh your memory of how the Wannon Diversions have intercepted the most reliable headwater streams of the Wannon River for more than 50 years, this diagram will help you get your bearings.
I am not going to shy away from expressing just how frustrating it was to receive this news. Not only because it had been such a long wait and I received the message just as the diversions had commenced operating again this year, but also because I am now aware of just how much effort some of the government agencies had put into trying to make this common sense outcome possible.
Increasing the reliability of flows this year to the upper Wannon River also would have made a lot of strategic sense, given that the government itself has invested so much effort into post-fire recovery efforts to protect threatened species impacted by the fire, noting that the entirety of the Wannon River below the diversion points within the National Park was burned for the first time in living memory. An example of one of those threatened species protection and recovery efforts, the rescue of the threatened Wannon River form of River Blackfish, is shown below. (Note, you can also read more about post-fire threatened species response in this other NGT story this month).
Recovery and protection of the River Blackfish after the fire, and capitalising on the fantastic work described above, should mean doing everything possible to ensure the quality and quantity of flows in the river are not in any way compromised. Yet this year, during the most critical post-fire recovery phase, the diversions have continued to operate as normal, as if nothing at all had happened in the Wannon River last summer.
In this context, by ‘normal’, I mean that the diversion points and pipes are again intercepting all flows in the First and Second Wannon Creeks, up to their capacity, with this water being sent into storage within Lake Bellfield (an adjacent Wimmera catchment dam), preventing this water from ever reaching the Wannon River downstream. According to the ‘rules’ that remain in place under the Water Act 1989, which do not allow for any low-moderate passing flows to the Wannon River, the diversions started operating at the beginning of June and – unless something changes – will continue to operate again this year until the end of October.
For anyone interested, the specific rule is worded as follows: “Operate Wannon Diversion to maximise inflows to reservoir during the months of June to October inclusive.” You can find this and the other storage management rules on page 6 of this document, which is also available from the GWMWater website.
Also, to remind you, this is an example of what the diversions look like when they are operating.
As I outlined in June, we were advised that a change to the regular operating rules this year couldn’t occur without the four Water Entitlement holders in the Wimmera-Grampians system unanimously agreeing to that change. The full process behind the decision (including the individual positions adopted by, and the reasoning of, the four entitlement holders) remains opaque and confidential. So all we know is the final result of that process, which was that a unanimous agreement was not reached.
At the time I shared this news, the diversions had only been operating for a few weeks (since the start of June), so rather than give up, I made some further phone calls to see if there were any other avenues available to try to achieve a common-sense outcome. After a subsequent, lengthy conversation with the Wimmera-Grampians system Storage Manager, I was led to believe that two options were still on the table.
What were the options, and are they viable?
One of these options, seeking direct Ministerial intervention, seemed to me the least likely to succeed, so I placed this on the back burner, while pursuing the second: an ‘operational level’ negotiated outcome between a willing entitlement holder and the Storage Manager. This alternative ‘water accounting’ solution would involve one of the entitlement holders agreeing to a reduction in their entitlement this year, to account for any reduction in water diverted to Lake Bellfield as a result of the Wannon Diversions being closed, when they would normally be capturing and diverting flows.
It quickly became apparent that this concept was deeply challenging to everyone involved, because it requires very different logic to how the system normally operates to deliver an ‘environmental flow’. In most cases, this sees a pre-determined amount of water released from storage (an upstream dam) for environmental purposes in the river downstream and accounted for accordingly, and all of this is planned in advance. For example, an environmental flow down the Glenelg River, requires a release of an agreed volume of water from the Rocklands Reservoir, at a particular rate over time.
In this instance however, we have an overarching physical constraint that can’t be overcome – that is, once water has been diverted via gravity to Lake Bellfield, it ends up in a location where it is entirely and permanently lost to its original catchment, meaning that as soon as it enters one of the diversion points, it can never be used for environmental purposes again within the Wannon River. However, by simply turning off the diversion points for some or all of the period between June and October, an ‘environmental flow’ would be automatically generated after each winter and spring rainfall event, by allowing the First and Second Creeks to follow their natural course to the Wannon River downstream. Unlike a release from storage, this natural flow could only be quantified and accounted for in arrears (i.e. after being measured as the flow occurs).
It sounds simple enough, but for a system that is designed to accurately account for every drop of water, generating an environmental flow by allowing these unregulated streams to flow down their natural course, triggered a couple of key questions:
(1) who would be willing to take a reduction in their water entitlement (and from which pool of environmental water)?
(2) how would the volume of water be calculated?
After several weeks of back and forth – it seems that we’ve now exposed a ‘wicked problem’ in the design of this catchment infrastructure, meaning that neither of these questions can be quickly or easily resolved.
The first question exposes an interesting quandary when a river has its water harvested and sent to another catchment.
Despite the Wannon River (in the Glenelg catchment) contributing a vast amount of water to Lake Bellfield (in the Wimmera catchment) for more than 50 years, at the direct cost of the Wannon River downstream, it has no entitlement provision for environmental flows of its own. So to enable the diversions to be ‘turned off’, one of the other waterways in the region would have to experience a parallel volume reduction in environmental flow scheduled for release from storage. Given that this also involves two separate catchments (with Wannon River water being literally taken out of the south-flowing Glenelg catchment and put into the north-flowing Wimmera catchment), there is also the question of whether it should be a river in the Wimmera region, or the Glenelg-Hopkins region, that should offer up this corresponding reduction. With environmental watering plans for these rivers agreed well in advance, I am sure you can imagine just how much resistance there would be to any last-minute altering of those plans, especially given that in this instance, the volume of water flowing down the First and Second Wannon Creeks in any given year – for the reasons stated earlier – cannot be ascertained in advance.
If this isn’t complicated enough, it is the second question – about flow measurement – that it seems is actually the fundamental show-stopper. In fact, I have now come to the unfortunate and sobering conclusion that none of the options that were being considered, even the ‘rule change’ scenario considered earlier by the four entitlement holders which was rejected, would have ever been viable unless a corresponding exception was also made to the accepted method of flow measurement, to accommodate the characteristics of the waterways in questions.
Let me explain why…
What problems do the current ‘rules’ pose for measuring flows in the Wannon?
During our discussions, the Wimmera-Grampians system Storage Manager advised me that the rules under which the system is operated, also have strict methodological requirements to ensure the accuracy of water measurement. Given the politics of water, I understand why it is important that everyone can have confidence in the volume of water that is allocated and used for different purposes. The integrity of the whole system depends on it.
The Storage Manager indicated that any water accounting proposal seeking to negotiate an early closure to the diversions this year, would require the amount of water flowing down the natural watercourses past the diversion points to be accurately measured with either (a) fixed rated structures with gauging and monitoring, or (b) pipe flow meters. This would allow the volume of water that could have been diverted on any given day (up to the theoretical maximum diversion pipe capacity) to be deducted from the measured flow, to work out the exact amount of water Lake Bellfield would be forgoing with the diversions closed.
To give you feel for what type of infrastructure this level of measurement requires, here is an example of what a fixed rated structure with monitoring looks like…
There is just one problem. This all sounds nice in theory, but the First and Second Wannon Creeks are steep, rocky waterways, without any flow monitoring infrastructure in their bed, and to put this type of fixed, concrete infrastructure in place at the diversion points would not only be expensive, but also invasive, causing unnecessary disturbance to a protected waterway in the Grampians National Park.
This quandary leaves the upper Wannon River ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’, because:
1. – as mentioned earlier, the current ‘rules’ actually require as much water as possible to be diverted out of the Wannon from June to October, and that volume is able to be accurately measured as it leaves the diversion pipe en route to Lake Bellfield. In contrast, any water that is not diverted doesn’t have to be measured at these locations.
2. – this means we currently have no way of calculating:
(a) the volume of water flowing down the natural waterways past the diversion points (either when they are closed (between November and May annually), or when the diversions are being operated but the volume of the diversion pipes is temporarily overwhelmed during high flows); or,
(b) what proportion of the natural flows of either the First or Second Wannon Creek are currently lost to Lake Bellfield.
The nearest location where Wannon River flows can currently be measured accurately is a significant distance downstream, at the Jimmy Creek campground weir. Based on information recently gathered by NGT’s Lachlan Farrington, as shared in this article, we now know that up until late July, in the first two months of the diversions operating this year, almost half (44%) of the total volume of the early winter flow that should have reached this downstream location in the river was lost by being diverted to Lake Bellfield.
This leaves us with the perverse – I would go so far as to say bizarre – scenario where, to even begin a conversation about some of this diverted water being returned to the Wannon River, the two natural rocky headwater streams in the National Park, would have to be deliberately modified with their beds excavated so that fixed concrete flow monitoring infrastructure could be installed to allow for accurate measurement of flows within them. All of this would be required simply to try to justify the river getting back some of its own water from diversions that take first priority under the current rules. This mode of operation is not based on any study that was ever done to justify how much water the diversions could or should take, or what degree of water harvesting the Wannon River could tolerate – but simply because the present arbitrary ‘rules’ say that the diversions can take as much water as they can carry, for 5 months every year, with no requirement to pass any flows.
So now – in summary – we find ourselves in the strange situation that under the current rules, if we wish to see the Wannon ever claw back access to some of its own water between June and October, we would have to advocate damaging these waterways by building the flow monitoring infrastructure that is needed in their beds, to help justify the argument for it to occur.
At the end of this long and meandering story, you can probably see why I am left feeling like the possibility of an ‘operational level’ negotiated solution, now feels as if it was only ever an illusion that simply never had the possibility of materialising – because there were underlying assumptions about water measurement that could never be met. And so, with every day that has passed in the time it has taken to reach this conclusion, the volume of water denied to the Wannon River this year, during its post-fire recovery, continues to grow.
What can we do now, in both the short-term and long-term?
Now, with only 2 months left of spring diversions this year, this sadly puts us back at square one, with only one short-term avenue for a different outcome remaining. Having done my best to work directly with the various agencies in the system and bureaucracy to achieve a common sense outcome and failed, I will now write again to the Minister for Water in Victoria, requesting a personal meeting and making the case for direct intervention where the system has clearly let the river down. It is a long shot, but worth a try for an issue that is simply too important to ignore.
In a future story, we will share some ideas for how – in the longer term – the rules might one day be revised, to provide a fairer, more sophisticated and balanced outcome for the Wannon River, in a way that would not require damaging the bed of the First and Second Wannon Creeks.
PS – An important footnote…. on the question of supply and demand in the Wimmera-Grampians reservoir system
This whole topic of discussion so far has been solely focused on the ‘supply’ side of the water balance equation, because the Wannon diversions are part of the story for how much water ultimately ends up in storage, by contributing to the pool of water held in Lake Bellfield. This reservoir storage, along with other storages in the Wimmera-Grampians system, is then made available for consumptive use through the water entitlements previously referred to.
But what about the ‘demand’ side of the equation?
In a drying climate, and with our rivers – like the Wannon – under obvious stress, it might surprise you to learn that new demand for water in the Wimmera-Grampians system is not being wound back or deterred. Indeed the exact opposite is true. With new pipelines either under construction or proposed, new demand for water from the reservoirs in the Grampians is still actively and deliberately being created.
Examples include the East Grampians Rural Pipeline (currently under construction, heavily subsidised by taxpayers) and the Southern Wimmera & Northeast Pyrenees Water Supply Project (at the feasibility assessment stage), and there are other communities calling out for new pipelines in other locations too.
Ironically, in seeking to create more certainty in a drying climate, for more paying water customers, we run the risk of making the system less robust and sustainable for all – including our rivers, which have already been asked to compromise so much and, as we’ve discussed here at length, are struggling to get their fair share.
As a community, we certainly have a lot to contemplate.
