Hughenden irrigation corporation and shires work together

The Hughenden Irrigation Project Corporation (HIPCo) and Flinders Shire Council have signed a memorandum of understanding on collaborative water harvesting undertakings, and there are hopes that more shires will come on board.

“Game-changing” is how HIPCo chairman Jeff Reid described the MoU with the Flinders shire, which he said will see the two groups work together to research and advocate for optimal economic and community outcomes in harvesting and utilising water resources and support only the best projects for further consideration.

Mr Reid said that rather than three or four groups along the Flinders River all “paddling our own canoes”, HIPCo was trying to get all agencies to pull in the same direction.

This could mean that if a McKinlay Shire project was found to be optimal, Richmond would have to promote it, and McKinlay may have to do the same for something in the Flinders Shire.

Different shires are working with HIPCo to focus on different projects. HIPCo has been working on an irrigated agriculture scheme west of Hughenden, the Flinders Shire has advocated for an off-stream water storage project, and the Richmond Shire Council has been seeking a 100,000ML water allocation from the state government and a $100 million grant from the Federal Government to kickstart a water capture and irrigated farming project in its region.

Mr Reid said the Richmond Shire had reacted positively to the collaboration, and HIPCo presented it to the McKinlay Shire Council explaining that presenting a united point of view rather than several small ideas was better.

“Doing it the way we have been makes it easy for the government to say, ‘if you can’t pull together, how can we work with you’,” he said. “It’s a matter of not being so parochial.”

The proposal is to have a working group in which all the different plans will be investigated and prioritised in what Mr Reid expected would be a robust discussion.

Several factors have brought the idea into being – the decision by the State Government in January to review the Gulf Water Plan, which in turn canned HIPCo’s tender for the release of unallocated water in the Flinders River catchment, and news in August that HIPCo has secured State Government funding for the next three years.

“HIPCo’s a small technical group – we’re funded to pay water experts so that we can feed expert opinions into councils,” Mr Reid said. “We’ll be offering advice only, not making any decisions. We might lay everything out on a spreadsheet, and it might be that two small projects get the tick.”

He hoped the process would take six months.

Acting Flinders Shire Mayor, Niki Flute, said seeing such collaboration for the first time was exciting.

“We would be happy to see any project go forward – if we can harness any water along the Flinders River, that’s a good thing,” she said. “Promoting individual projects makes it look to the government that we’re all competing.”

Mr Reid said the single focus for planning in the Flinders Shire had been made possible via the leadership of Mayor Kate Peddle, a former HIPCo director.

“(She) has firsthand experience with the problems of developing a large water project and has also seen the council’s water project being unable to proceed,” he said. “The council’s off-stream storage water bank project could not attract the required government funding due to the limited number of commercial beneficiaries. The HIPCo project outlined in the business case could not proceed as we could not secure the required volume of water. The new mayor has opened the way for a new collaborative period to harness the water sustainably economically to benefit the region’s people.”

Mr Reid hoped it would ultimately lead to a strategic plan for the future release of water in the Flinders River.

“The last time there were water tenders, they went to the highest bidder,” he said. “Our voice can say loudly, that didn’t work.”

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