Water allocations in the Murray and Goulburn water districts for this irrigation season have been increased.
On August 1, the northern Victoria resource manager announced Murray high-reliability water shares allocations will increase from 68 per cent to 73 per cent.
The Goulburn and Loddon systems increase from 73 per cent to 89 per cent HRWS.
The Campaspe system stays at 100 per cent HRWS and has 13 per cent low-reliability water shares.
The Broken system increases from 8 per cent to 17 per cent HRWS, while the Bullarook system remains unchanged at zero per cent HRWS.
No systems other than Canpaspe have LRWS allocations.
Resource manager Mark Bailey said rain in recent weeks was the main contributor to the seasonal determination increases.
“Rainfall in most of the catchment areas in the last fortnight has generated flows into major storages above our conservative estimates,” he said.
“It also means we can include flows expected to be captured in the storages in the coming weeks.
“The impact of these factors is that there is more water available for allocation.
“The Bullarook system needs more flows into the storages before there is enough water available for allocation. There are sufficient reserves available to deliver the allocation carried over from last year.”
Dartmouth Dam releases
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has announced increased releases from Dartmouth Reservoir for electricity generation.
The new releases of 500 Ml/day started on August 1 and are expected to continue until 4pm on Friday, August 9 but will be dependent upon electricity demand.
This increase is expected to result in the flow rising to about 1875 Ml/day.