Public submission to charge rules issues paper for irrigation infrastructure operators by Callandoon Water Board on 17/7/2008

The Callandoon Water Board (CWB) has a Distribution Operations Licence (DOL). The CWB delivers 5411 ML of supplemented water and unsupplemented water (Nominal Volume 8834ML) to 9 irrigators and stock and domestic water to 17 properties. The CWB has a 2.7m high control structure in the Callandoon Creek to regulate the flow and is licenced to take a maximum of 1000ML/day. The natural bed of the Callandoon Creek is used to carry the regulated water. Irrigators have installed their own pumps to take water and the CWB provided meters and the CWB reads and maintains all meters.

The CWB was formed in 1990 under an “Order in Council”. The CWB then proceeded to construct their control structure and other creek crossings that were required. Finance was provided by Queensland Treasury at commercial rates of interest. These loans have been repaid and CWB has a surplus for contingencies.

The CWB sets rates on a megalitre basis to cover fixed charges. The CWB also passes to irrigators the variable costs that the CWB pays to Sunwater for water pumped. CWB has 6 members, who are all irrigators and have a vested interest in keeping costs to a minimum and to deliver water efficiently as well as maintaining our assets for the long term.

The CWB has not addressed the problem of termination fees or exit fees at this stage. In the case of termination fees, CWB would probably want the cost of meter returned to CWB, otherwise CWB does not really have any costs. It is a very different case with exit fees where water was to be moved out of our area. CWB deals with relatively small amounts of water in a long (98km) creek. This results in high losses at times, e.g. if the creek is dry, a lot of water is lost in filling up holes and sand beds. CWB and the irrigators have to suffer these losses because Sunwater delivers (and therefore meters) CWB allocations at the control structure. Any loss of water from our area increases the proportion of water remaining irrigators will lose. The trading of water out of the area could make the scheme unviable for irrigators and would reduce the benefit stock & domestic users receive.

We bring to your attention Part 6, para 169 of the Border Rivers Resource Operations Plan. This section refers to distribution losses being shared by CWB members on establishment of the CWB. If water was transferred out, losses to remaining members would increase. One possible way out of this problem would be for the CWB to keep some of the transferred water to cover future losses.

In the Position Paper, there is discussion regarding differentiation between large and small infrastructure operators in relation to water charge rules. CWB believes there should be differentiation because any exit of water could have a large effect and unintended consequences such as stranded asset. Also reporting, efficiency reviews and benchmarking could be onerous, costly and unnecessary for small operators such as CWB. Our board is ‘owned’ and operated by the irrigators it supplies and therefore is focused on being efficient and as cheap as possible.

BW Duddy

Chairman

07 4671 1878