Feature
Issue No. 3 - December/ 2001/january
Barossa Watershed
When the vineyard irrigation system begins this summer, Barossa Valley winegrowers will be ready for the heat. In fact, they’ll be better prepared than ever, thanks to an innovative water importation scheme that opens for business on 18 December.
Water supply restrictions have hamstrung vineyard development in the Barossa. To break the bottleneck, in 1999 an innovative corporate entity, Barossa Infrastructure Limited (BIL) and SA Water struck an agreement to transport water from the River Murray to the Barossa Region using under—utilised SA Water infrastructure capacity.
The scheme will take about 120 megalitres of water per day from the Warren Reservoir and distribute it to customers in the Barossa Valley. The supply will permit coverage of about two millimetres per day per hectare during summer. The scheme will be able to deliver water all year round or deliver the total amount over a 50—day period of summer for supplementary irrigation.
The large and complex Barossa pipeline project has built a new, kilometres—long trunk main, upgraded an existing trunk main and built four major booster pumping stations and a distribution system to growers.
“For people who have got new vines this is the only source of water — it is a vital asset,” says BIL managing director, Mark Whitmore.
BIL’s reason for being is to supply water to its shareholders at the lowest possible price, now and into the future. Returns to the shareholders come through the lowest sustainable price for water, rather than dividends.
“There were advantages to creating a limited company rather than a cooperative, such as more stringent controls on the directors,” Mark says. “It’s an ordinary limited company. We elect directors and have half elections. Everyone who is a shareholder is a grapegrower. If we (directors) are not performing the shareholders can get rid of us.”
The pipeline can deliver water for dam or aquife...
