As Andrew Bomm says in this week's paper "some very difficult decisions are coming for our governments" ("Will nuts crack water market?", p6).
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The biggest concern is the highest demand is yet to come as these expanding nut crops mature and reach production.
Given the estimate that demand could reach well beyond current levels, growers who don't have access to high security water are worried what the future holds, especially during extreme dry periods.
Unlike the more traditional crops such as rice, or enterprises such as dairy, producers of nut crops don't have the flexibility of not watering for a season.
Add to this the Barmah Choke's flow limitations for water delivery, and the increasing demand below the choke, and the Basin Plan, combined with the water market structure, have brought inherent inefficiencies and some unforeseen challenges for supply.
The Victorian government has reacted to this news by hitting pause on new developments below the Choke, but our government is instead chipping the Murray Darling Basin Authority about the timely delivery of reports.
While these reports may be important for short term decision making, the problems emerging would suggest the priority should be the overall structural failings of the system already reshaping the look of southern irrigation valleys.
The overall recovery target for the Basin Plan was 3200 gigalitres (which includes the 450GL upwater), yet here's one industry by itself potentially taking as much as 1555GL.
What effect might that have on the communities who traditionally took a bigger share?
The total take for irrigators is 10,873GL, so at face value, nut industry demand doesn't seem like much.
But permanent plantation nut trees' water demand doesn't fluctuate with the seasons like annual crops.
And then there's the damage already done to communities with 2100GL recovered so far.
It's no wonder these smaller irrigators and their communities are worried about the amount of water disappearing down river to be used on nuts.
We don't hear as much lately as we used to about the triple bottom line - social, economic and environment - but it seems the situation here could be about to bypass all three, certainly the social and economic.
Sections of the river are being over watered, bank erosion has increased with high delivery loads, increased transmission losses are occurring with more demand further from the storages, and less businesses can afford the water.
There have been some environmental gains, including for wetlands and some fish species (despite last summer's fish kills), but in the context of the water market, the system has created a range of pressing challenges for family farms and for the effectiveness of the Basin Plan itself.
RELATED ARTICLE: Will nuts crack the water market?
