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The tragic decision by farmers in the Campaspe Irrigation District to sell their water rights and decommission the irrigation system was partly forced by a chronic mismanagement of water above Lake Eppalock, Nationals MP for Northern Victoria, Damian Drum, said today.

About 70 per cent of the 153 farmers in the district voted to sell their water licences at a community meeting recently. They had received no water in four of the past five years.

Mr Drum said some farmers would now opt to find alternative ways to get water to their farms while some would just walk off the land.

“No-one can blame them for taking this very grave decision.

“Farmers at the northern end of the Campaspe are at the end of a very long and often very wasteful chain,” Mr Drum said.

And they are the victims of accumulating poor decisions.

“For example, the State Government knows there are at least 8000 small dams in the Lake Eppalock catchment alone. The Government knows this, because that is the Government’s own estimation.

“It estimates those dams, many of them not much more than decorative water holes for small rural holdings, collectively hold more than 23 BILLION litres of water.

“Every time it rains and we get any run-off at all, it is these little dams which get the first 23 BILLION litres.

“Over the long term, it is estimated these dams catch more than 11 per cent of the run off in Eppalock’s catchment.

“Eppalock has been almost dry for years because of the failure of rains, and the failure of any significant run-off.”

Mr Drum said the State Government and its agencies should have been far more pro-active in making sure more of the billions of litres captured by lifestyle and hobby farm dams was available for productive farming.