Environmental Water Purchase

Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council has announced a purchase project for The Living Murray of up to 125,000 megalitres of water access licenses in the NSW Murray, Lower Darling and Murrumbidgee valleys.

WATER ACCESS LICENCE PURCHASE THE LIVING MURRAY

The NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) is seeking expressions of interest from holders or shareholders of NSW water access licences who may wish to sell all or part of their licence or licence share to the environment.

DECC is seeking to purchase general security, high security and conveyance water access licences in the New South Wales Murray, Lower Darling and Murrumbidgee regulated river water sources.

Consideration may be given to allowing sellers to retain the use of any water allocations accruing to purchased entitlement, under contract until June 2009.

The recovered water will be managed for environmental benefit under The Living Murray program which is a joint initiative of the Commonwealth, NSW, Victorian, South Australian and ACT governments. Further information can be found on the web at: http://www.thelivingmurray.mdbc.gov.au/.

Expressions of interest will be considered against price and other criteria on a first-come, first-served basis until target volumes are acquired, funding is expended or until April 2009.

Expression-of-interest forms and information can be downloaded from

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/environmentalwater/waterpurchase.htm

or telephone (02) 6298 9722 to ask for a form to be faxed or mailed to you.

Completed forms can be emailed to riverbank@environment.nsw.gov.au, faxed to (02) 6299 3221, or posted, marked ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ to:

Water Purchase Expression of Interest
Department of Environment and Climate Change
PO Box 733
QUEANBEYAN NSW 2620

Enquiries: riverbank@environment.nsw.gov.au or phone (02) 6024 8835 or (02) 6298 0377.

At its 25 May 2007 meeting, the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council approved a pilot project for the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to purchase water from willing sellers to help achieve The Living Murray's water recovery objective.

Pilot Environmental Water Purchase project¹

This pilot project aimed to purchase up to 20GL of water for the environment through The Living Murray program. This volume of water is about 0.2% of the average water diversion from the southern connected Murray-Darling Basin.

The first phase of the pilot was to receive and review Expressions of Interest from prospective willing sellers. Following a significant response, as of 13/8/2007 this phase has ended and no further Expressions of Interest will be reviewed.

For further information on the pilot, please download the media release below.

If you would like to send us comments on the pilot, please email water.recovery@mdbc.gov.au

Media release: First phase of water purchase pilot closes early because of strong response. (PDF - 40KB)

Feedback Questionnaire: Have your say on the Pilot Environmental Water Purchase project. (PDF - 45KB)

¹This project was formerly known as the Pilot Market Purchase Measure.

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Page Last Updated: 13 Aug 2008 09:59