Water Security for Wangaratta
Phase One Summary
In 2013, the Victorian Government announced the $1 million 'Water Security for Wangaratta'
project to assess water demand in Wangaratta and consider the most cost-effective way to
improve water security for the regional city and Glenrowan.
The project has been divided into three phases:

Phase One – Investigate the region’s current and future water requirements. (Completed
December 2013).

Phase Two – Identify and assess options to improve urban and industrial water security.
(Completion due May 2014).

Phase Three – Final report with recommendations. (Completion due August 2014).
Phase One of the 'Water Security for Wangaratta' project is complete and the two reports from
this phase have now been released.
Wangaratta and District Water Demands report by RMCG
The Wangaratta and District Water Demands Report:

Established a preliminary estimate of the existing water security for urban and industrial uses
in the Ovens, King and Buffalo valleys and identified future requirements.

Estimated the potential growth in Wangaratta’s residential, commercial and industrial sectors
and the associated potential additional demand for water.

Assessed the risks associated with maintaining current levels of water security.

Examined possible future industry expansion if there was a more secure water supply.

Developed criteria to guide an initial assessment of water supply options.
Commercial and industrial water users
The work revealed that for commercial and industrial water users:

Although water quality is occasionally a concern, security of supply has not been a concern
and most businesses considered that security of supply had been reasonable over the past
decade.

The cost of labour and competition from imports far outweighs the importance of water (both
volume and quality) as a priority issue.

Future demand in the commercial and industrial sector is unlikely to increase significantly.
This has been attributed to factors such as industry relocations or business closure in
Wangaratta and Myrtleford.
Currently, commercial and industrial demand is 1,492ML for the Ovens Basin, which constitutes
32% of total demand when compared to residential demand and losses. The following table
provides detail of current water demand (ML).
Sector
Commercial and
Industrial
Residential
Wangaratta
Other Basin
Total
Proportion (%)
system
towns
1,119
373
1,492
32%
1,628
638
2,268
49%
549
356
905
19%
Losses (includes
headworks and
treatment)
Future projections
Based on a scenario of moderate growth, future water demand for both urban and rural sectors
was estimated by the consultants to be between 13,500ML to 28,600ML depending on climate
conditions.
Current and future commercial and industrial demand to 2060 is likely to be about 1,500ML for
the Ovens Basin. This demand is consistent with the water planning undertaken by North East
Water in its 'Water Supply Demand Strategy 2012'.
Irrigated agriculture
Key themes and issues for irrigated agriculture were:

Security of supply underpins confidence - Being able to use irrigation water during the dry
summer period is critical to the intensive horticulture industry as under-irrigation can result in
a severe loss of production.

Only a small proportion of licence allocated is used - Discussions with irrigators highlighted
that the licensed entitlement is usually much higher (by a factor of ~4-5 fold) than actual use.
There were a number of reasons for this including historical volumes associated with the
production of tobacco, and irrigators adopting a risk management approach for dry
conditions where higher licence volumes provided an increased allowable time to pump.

Mix of water resources (groundwater and surface water) provided irrigators with a mix of
sources often relied on as a risk management strategy.

Lack of maturity of the water trading market – attributed in part to cultural factors and lack of
market opportunities.

Many irrigators indicated that they did not have high expectations for improved water
security in the region as constraints such as market factors and increasing changes in landuse shifting to lifestyle properties, were more likely to impact on likelihood of increasing
productivity in the region than constraints on water reliability.
Report recommendations
The report made the following recommendations:
1. Consider appropriate level of security and access for different sectors
2. Communicate the point of difference
3. Review the potential growth in demand periodically
4. Facilitate trading of water and recognition as an asset
5. Ensure that the system delivery is efficient
6. Manage costs associated with water delivery
You can read the Executive Summary or the full 'Wangaratta and District Water Demands'
report at www.depi.vic.gov.au/water-security-for-wangaratta
Urban and Industrial Water Reliability report by Sinclair Knight
Merz (SKM)
This aim of this work was to bring together several recent studies to determine the degree to
which the current system can satisfy Wangaratta’s urban and industrial water needs at current
and future levels of demand and under historic climate and climate change.
Future demands
The work determined that:

Water demand for Wangaratta in 2060 is estimated to be 23% higher than current demand,
while irrigation demand is estimated to be 24% higher than current demand.

Reliability of supply for water users supplied from Lake Buffalo, including Wangaratta, is
currently estimated to be 88%. In other words, the likelihood of restrictions being imposed
on supply in any given year is 12%.

The current reliability of supply of 88% is below North East Water’s agreed level of service
objective of 90% annual reliability of supply, as specified in its Water Supply Demand
Strategy (WSDS).
Supply options
The assessment considered the following supply options:
Groundwater
Two approaches to using more groundwater were investigated.

The first was to use more groundwater to supply Wangaratta so as to reduce the amount of
surface water diverted to the town.

The second approach used groundwater to supplement surface water supply during periods
of water restrictions. It found that up to 100ML of groundwater is required to meet
Wangaratta’s agreed level of service objective under current and future levels of
development. This volume is less than Wangaratta’s current groundwater entitlement of
700ML.

Under the driest climate change case and future demands, the amount of groundwater
required is up to 1000ML.
Lake Buffalo

A comparative analysis was undertaken raising Lake Buffalo to restore 90% reliability of
supply under the driest climate change case and to meet future demand. It found that the
capacity of Lake Buffalo would need to be increased by 10,000ML to achieve this. This
would benefit both Wangaratta and Buffalo system regulated irrigators.

It was estimated that 2,400ML of the increased capacity could be attributed to improving
reliability of supply to Wangaratta only.
Stormwater and other sources
An analysis of alternative water supplies including stormwater, recycled water and other water
sources from North East Water’s 'Alternative Water Atlas' found that at least 240ML per year is
available in Wangaratta from identified potential sources.
Findings
Phase One of the project, to investigate the region’s current and future water requirements and
identify options to address any shortfall, is complete.
The findings from the work to date include:

Augmentation requirements range from 100ML to 1GL to achieve North East Water’s 90%
reliability standards for Wangaratta between now and 2060 under various climate scenarios.

To have no restrictions in any year, augmentation requirements increase from 1.6GL to
2.3GL under the same scenarios.

These requirements can be met from available groundwater resources.

To achieve the same outcome from additional surface water would require raising Lake
Buffalo’s capacity by between 40% and 70% depending on the demand and climate scenario
chosen.
Costings have not been developed for any of these options.
You can read the Executive Summary or the full 'Urban and Industrial Water Reliability report'
on the Department's website at www.depi.vic.gov.au/water-security-for-wangaratta
What happens next?
The Project Steering Committee has engaged consultants for Phase Two of the project, to
assess the costs and benefits of the options to improve water security for Wangaratta. This work
is expected to be complete by May 2014.
How do I get involved?
Further progress reports will be published on the Department's website at
www.depi.vic.gov.au/water-security-for-wangaratta in February and August 2014.
To contact the Project Steering Committee, or register for an e-newsletter at milestone points in
the project, please email watersecurity.wangaratta@depi.vic.gov.au