Press Release - October 7, 2024

Vic govt project in court over “uber engineering” of Murray floodplains 

Monday 7 October 2024

A community action group is taking a Victorian government project to court to scrutinise plans for multi-million-dollar artificial engineering works on fragile Murray River floodplains in northwest Victoria.

The Victorian government wants to spend many millions of dollars creating levee banks and installing large pumps, weirs and water regulators at several locations along the Murray River to divert water onto floodplains. These works are used to justify the government providing a reduced amount of water for the environment under the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

A community environment group, Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park, represented by Environmental Justice Australia, is taking the Victorian government project to the Federal Court.

They argue the approval for this project, at the Nyah floodplain near Swan Hill, was flawed and unlawful. They are concerned it will be locally damaging, scarring the landscape, altering the river and leading to less water for the Murray-Darling's unique and precious floodplains.

The group says the artificial engineering of the wetlands also ignores the wishes of many traditional owners, who are concerned that cultural heritage will be destroyed, and the floodplains’ survival will be jeopardised by government mismanagement.

Photos (credit Doug Gimesy) and footage of Nyah floodplains and spokespeople available for media (single use license only) to download here.

Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park chair Jacquie Kelly says:

“We want real wetland flooding rather than uber-engineering projects that won’t achieve the good environmental outcomes.”

“With the millennium drought, climate change and water mismanagement, the floodplains are dying of thirst. They need regular water, but this risky and destructive water offset project is the wrong approach.”

“It’s a huge waste of money – so much cost for so little gain – and it’s scientifically risky. There's no proof it will work.”

Traditional owner and resident of Wood Wood, Auntie Marilyne Nicholls says:

“I am concerned about the damage this will do to our cultural landscape including the traditional hydrology practices of the Watti Watti people with fish traps and the Watti Watti ancestors buried in that landscape.”

Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN) spokesperson Brendan Kennedy says:  

“There are lots and lots of ancestral burial mounds, middens, ceremonial grounds and other rich Watti Watti cultural heritage in that forest – it’s like our crown jewels.”

“If they put in pump sites and other structures, they will own the locations they build them on. It’s an ongoing dispossession, of our land and our water.”

“We don’t authorise them to manage our Country. We have never ceded our sovereignty and that Country is our inherent right. We are the traditional Watti Watti owners.” 

Environmental Justice Australia lawyer Nicola Silbert says:  

“Our client is deeply concerned this is a major artificial engineering project in a fragile wetland that needs proper environmental scrutiny and consideration of other options available.”

The legal challenge

The group will challenge a decision made under Australia’s environment laws, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999, to approve the Nyah Vinifera “water offset” project proposed by Lower Murray Water (a state government water authority), as part of the Murray Darling Basin Plan. 

This is the first case challenging projects which avoid the recovery of environmental water under the Murray Basin Plan. 

If the case is successful, it could force the government to consider different ways of providing more water for the environment. These floodplains require regular water to stay healthy, and Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park say this should happen through natural flooding and water allocated to environmental flows.  

Instead of doing damage with earthworks, steel or concrete, the group says the opposite needs to happen. Other state governments are removing constraints like levees and concrete that get in the way of the river's natural flows, but so far, the Victorian government has refused. 

Of nine projects, the Nyah project is one of four major river reengineering projects proposed by the Victorian government that have received approval. The assessments of four other projects are currently on hold.  

A project assessed alongside Nyah – known as the Burra Creek Floodplain Restoration Project – was withdrawn in January after the Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny ruled the project could cause unacceptable environmental damage, including by clearing ‘very large old trees’, damage to the regent parrot and the lack of understanding of the ‘Wakool Effect’ (the hydrology when the Wakool River floods into the Murray River). 

‘The project is likely to result in unacceptable environmental effects on … biodiversity values in this important flood plain environment due to significant loss of native vegetation,’ Ms Kilkenny wrote in her assessment. 

Background 

These Murray River floodplains need to be intermittently inundated with water: they are an essential breeding and feeding habitat for waterbirds, fish, insects and plants. To remain healthy, they need to be alternately wet and dry. 

The Murray-Darling basin has 30,000 wetlands, including 16 recognised as an internationally important haven for birdlife, some of which are proposed engineering sites. 

MEDIA CONTACT: Miki Perkins on 03 8341 3110 and [email protected]

Friends of Nyah Vinifera Park, established in 1996, is a long-standing community environment group that works towards the protection of river red gum and black box wetland forests and their flora, fauna and ecological values. The group aligns closely with Watti Watti traditional owners to achieve their aspirations around land, water and culture.  

Environmental Justice Australia is a national public interest legal organisation. We work on the most pressing environmental justice issues of our time. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the communities we serve, running game-changing court cases, high-stakes legal interventions and bold advocacy campaigns. We hold government and corporations to account, for a safe climate, thriving nature, justice and radically better world. 

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