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We are fortunate to enjoy extremely high quality water in this region from the Murrumbidgee River. We are committed to maintaining that high standard within our system and continue to work closely with customers and other stakeholders to identify water quality risks in our supply and drainage network.
Our program involves measurement of water flow, testing and analysis of temperature, turbidity, pH, salinity, pollutants, (including nutrients and pesticides) and responding to any complaints in relation to water quality.
The quality of drainage water is monitored within sub-catchments using a risk-based approach which forms part of our Environmental Protection Licence (EPL) issued by the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH). Trigger monitoring is used to test the water when predefined conditions such as rainfall occur. Water is tested for 12 different chemicals. The quality of supply water is monitored using benchmarking sampling with samples collected at three intervals throughout the irrigation season. Water samples are laboratory analysed to ensure results are within our EPL thresholds.
All irrigation areas face risks from elevated watertables and soil salinisation. We remain diligent in our efforts to keep water tables below two metres from the surface - the point at which salinity risk increases and has the highest impact on production.
We are legally required to comply with the requirements of the Water Information Program operated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). To find out more about the Bureau of Meteorology Water Information Program visit their website www.bom.gov.au/water/
To ensure that we comply with NSW Office of Water and OEH licences, all irrigators are asked to implement Best Management Practices on farm and are required to comply with the Pesticide Act 1999 when applying pesticides. For more information on water quality, see our Annual Compliance Reports.
As of March 2012, EPL requires us to publish the results of monitoring that is required as part of the licence.