Issue 11 December 2000
The October rainstorm was welcome news indeed for 47 licensees in Keilor, most of whom use water from the Maribyrnong River in their market gardens.
These diverters have had to cut back on crops - and their income - in recent years as the drought hit hard.
Flows in the Maribyrnong were often no more than a trickle during the main irrigation season, and needed to be boosted by releases from Rosslynne Reservoir at Gisborne. By July, the storage level in the reservoir stood at only eight per cent.
A that time, Melbourne Water was predicting that diverters could face water restrictions as severe as 12.5 per cent of their allocations if good winter and spring rainfall did not eventuate.
Now, with the October rains producing good runoff into Rosslynne Reservoir and the Maribyrnong River catchment, Melbourne Water predicts that the Maribyrnong flows should be sufficient in the short term at least to delay implementation of any restrictions.
Melbourne Water's Manager of Yarra Operations, Peter Rankin, said that Rosslynne would still take more than two years to fill from its storage level of 42 per cent (a the end of November), given average rainfall.
Should Rosslynne water be required again in the coming months, diverters will receive 50 per cent of their allocation, on top of water already pumped from the Maribyrnong. However, irrigators cannot exceed their annual licence entitlement in any year.
Water in the reservoir is jointly managed and owned by Western Water (86 per cent), Melbourne Water (9.5 per cent) and Southern Rural Water (4.5 per cent).
