Australia - Snowy Hydro Announces It Cannot Meet Minimum Flow Requirements

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AUSTRALIA'S water crisis has deepened with a warning from Snowy Hydro that it will not be able to meet its minimum flow down the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers. Water trading has been suspended down the two river valleys as John Howard on Saturday called an emergency meeting with the premiers of NSW, Victoria and South Australia for tomorrow.

The commonwealth is expected to propose buy-backs of water rights and emergency allocations to irrigators most seriously affected, at the hastily called meeting. NSW Irrigators Council chief executive Doug Miell said Snowy Hydro had advised the council that October flows into the system were only half the level of the previous record low. "It really does require a major rethink of how the water that is available is allocated," Mr Miell.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Water Malcolm Turnbull, whose name is being canvassed for a broader environment portfolio in a ministerial reshuffle, said yesterday that the meeting was broader than the Snowy Hydro issue and would tackle the availability of water across the southern river system.

However, irrigators are counting on Snowy Hydro flows to provide a minimum stream. Although the agreement governing Snowy Hydro allows the electricity generator to reduce flows below an agreed minimum in time of drought, the warning that it would do so will focus concern about the terms under which the scheme was corporatised.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20707204-30417,00.html