UPPER South East livestock producers reliant on costly mains water have had their hopes dashed of reducing their water bills.
In November last year, a working group began investigating a bulk discount with SA Water on behalf of interested landholders.
This included a feasibility study looking at user demand and the potential to pump water through the mains system off-peak.
But last month they were told by SA Water there was not enough potential growth from users on the Tailem Bend to Keith pipeline to enter into a Coorong Water Transportation Scheme.
In the past decade, SA Water prices have soared 300 per cent to peak at $3.43 a kilolitre, sparking significant investment in lined catchments, desalination plants and private pipelines.
Producers have received a small reprieve with the present price of $3.24/kL, but this still represents more than $100 per cow-calf unit each year.
Woods Well producer Adam Merry, who was on the working group, said SA Water unfairly changed the goalposts during negotiations.
“A price reduction had been indicated if we could collectively gather information to go into bat for the scheme, but at the last meeting a whole heap of new criteria were introduced,” he said. “After working with SA Water in the past 12 months, I have found the process to be misleading, a drain on community resources and it has confirmed my suspicions regarding SA Water’s holistic approach to this issue.”
Mr Merry is particularly annoyed after SA Water dismissed the region’s water use as insignificant.
“They weren’t interested in the scheme unless we could prove a dramatic increase in consumption,” he said.
“When I asked what would happen if we all turned our meters off, the response was it did not represent a significant amount of revenue loss to justify doing a deal.”
Mr Merry is still hopeful those water users who expressed interest in the CWTS will be able to work together on other water security projects.
“Every year technology like desalination and water catchment projects catches up with the SA Water price – what was expensive five years ago is now fair and in another five years will be quite affordable,” he said.
Field livestock producer Jason Schulz says exceptional prices for sheep and cattle are “masking” the impact of high water costs.
“This area is one of the state’s prime areas for sheep and cattle but sustainable, affordable water is a long-term concern,” he said.
“We have explored options of selling and relocating somewhere else, but then we would be giving up the advantages the area has to offer.”
Mr Schulz is frustrated SA Water has reached an agreement with Clare Valley grapegrowers to significantly reduce their costs, but it has turned its back on a similar deal with Coorong livestock producers.
“Livestock are not as cut and dry as viticulture or horticulture, but livestock are worth more dollars to the economy than many of these other industries,” he said.
Coorong District Council acting chief executive officer David Mosel said although they were disappointed with SA Water’s response, livestock producers could move on to seriously consider investing in alternative sources of water for their operations.
“CDC will continue to explore opportunities to attract investment to our region in the area of localised and on-farm water security projects,” he said.
SA Water customer delivery general manager Kerry Rowlands said a wide range of factors had to be considered when determining the feasibility of establishing a local water transportation scheme.
“We had to make sure it doesn’t impact our overall customer base, it isn’t subsidised by existing customers, there is existing capacity in the network and all criteria needed as part of a commercial agreement is met,” she said.
“This criteria was not met.”
