Goulburn-Murray Water is seeking public input to help it minimise what it says are the social-economic impacts of recent changes to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
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In November 2023, the federal government amended the Commonwealth Water Act to give it greater scope to purchase water entitlements, removing water from irrigators' consumptive pool.
GMW managing director Charmaine Quick said it was important there was a clear strategy in place for any buybacks.
"The changes to the Murray Darling Basin Plan have understandably caused concerns for many of the communities in our region," she said.
"In the past, buybacks programs have been conducted as open tenders for water purchases.
"This has meant they have been largely untargeted, creating a Swiss cheese effect, where the patchy nature of the buybacks means we are delivering less water but still have the same costs relating to infrastructure operation and maintenance.
"This makes water delivery less efficient and irrigation more costly."
Ms Quick said water delivery in northern Victoria had become more efficient in recent years, thanks to recovery projects such as Connections and the Water Efficiency Project (WEP) that GMW delivered.
"Together, these two projects have created more than 450 gigalitres of annual water savings," he said
Ms Quick said community involvement was crucial as it was important for communities to again be engaged on future water recovery initiatives.
"It is important that we identify which areas water recovery will have the biggest benefits and least harm, and the best way to do this is by listening to our communities and understanding their needs," she said.
Meanwhile, the Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) said the federal government's plan to take water from food production in the Basin, in exchange for a $300 million "sugar hit"', was yet another slap in the face for regional communities.
VFF Water Council chair Andrew Leahy said the funding package announced by Water minister Tanya Plibersek would go nowhere close to what would be required to support communities targeted for water buybacks.
"Taking out $111 million of agricultural production every year and replacing it with a one-off $300 million package will do little more than paint some town halls," Mr Leahy said.
"Ten years of lost agricultural production based on the government's own flawed numbers would see over a $1 billion lost in agricultural production.
"Regional communities depend on thriving agricultural industries."
He said a billion-dollar loss in agricultural output would result in schools having to close, and job losses across multiple industries."
Mr Leahy said despite the limitations in the economic analysis being relied upon by the government, their number still showed water buybacks reduce the water available for food production and drive-up prices.
"ABARES found average water prices will increase by $53/megalitre in northern Victoria from $401 per megalitre to $454 per megalitre," Mr Leahy said.
"That's about half of what other reports have estimated, because they assume water purchases of 225GL and not the full 450GL would only reduce water use by 133GL."
And Goulburn beef producer Jan Beer, a long-time critic of the Basin Plan, said the government was still seeking confirmation from the commonwealth about how much water it intended to buy from Victoria, but there had not been a clear response.
" So the Victorian Government actually has no idea whether the Federal Water Minister will actually purchase through buybacks," Ms Beer said.
Back in February, 2016, GMW had also told the Senate it considered further water recovery, by purchase of entitlements or proposed environmental management plan (EMP) measures to recover 100 per cent of water savings were detrimental to the communities and economy of northern Victoria and should not proceed.
"Deliverability is the elephant in the room that Plibersek fails to mention," Ms Beer said.
"It is a fact that it is not possible to deliver that volume of water downstream under the proposed environmental flow regime, unless they are similar to the magnitude of the 2016 and 2022 floods."
People can share their thoughts on Victoria's proposed approach by heading to the Engage Victoria website: www.engage.vic.gov.au/planning-our-basin-future-together
