NEWS

Community calls for irrigation investment to better prevent poor-quality Murray River water. As the Murray River spread onto flood plains it collected debris and organic matter, impacting the quality for those connected to irrigation water.

The Australian Government has provided Queensland with an initial payment of $661,000 to protect native fish populations and flow benefits onto communities along the rivers of the northern Murray-Darling Basin.

Irrigators will save water, time and money at the same time as protecting native fish populations now and well into the future, thanks to the NSW Government’s $20 million Fish-Friendly Water Extraction project.

A growing number of landholders on the Darling River are installing fish protection screens on their water pumps in an effort to save native fish species. The screens were designed to ensure fish species such as Murray cod and golden perch, along with their eggs and larvae, were not sucked into irrigation infrastructure.

NSW farmers and native fish species will benefit from modern fish-protection screens, which will protect aquatic life as well as valuable farming equipment.

A fish-friendly water extraction project targeting irrigators throughout the northern Murray-Darling Basin is underway, signing up its first land manager today. Under the $6.6m federal government project to protect native fish, pump screens will be installed with a view to protecting millions of native fish in the northern basin.

Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders said the project would create jobs in the central west, with a strong focus on using local expertise, including businesses supplying components, transport and logistics.

The state government has pledged more than $13 million to fund up to 50 fish exclusion screens for irrigation pumps between Dubbo and the Macquarie Marshes, north of Warren.

Federal Water Minister Keith Pitt said the project would be good for farmers, local jobs, environment and recreational fishers. "This is a win-win for the Basin as it's also good for farmers because it reduces maintenance of pumps and increases efficient watering."

Native fish populations are at 10% of their previous levels and some people spend their whole lives trying to catch their dream fish. But where did all the fish go and what’s behind this disappearing act?

"We’ve been conducting some electrofishing on channels near Katunga ahead of our upcoming winter weed treatment. Removing fish is an important part of our treatment process - native fish are released into nearby waterways with the help of the Victorian Fisheries Authority. During this electrofishing, 300 blackfish, 130 cod and 20 yellowbelly were relocated. For more information about our 2021 winter works program, check out our website - www.gmwater.com.au/winterworks"

"If Australia gets this right, substantial benefits can be realised, saving millions of native fish every year, bolstering native fish recovery programmes, reducing ongoing costs for water users and enhancing the economic and social value in regional areas by boosting manufacturing, service industries, tourism and recreational fisheries."

CEO of OzFish Unlimited, Craig Copeland, said new irrigation screens could be a game-changer for farmers and the environment. "We have farmers who spend hours cleaning out their sprinkler heads or hours back-flushing their pumps," he said. "With the new modern irrigation screens, they don't have to do that, so there is a big cost incentive and efficiency incentive for farmers — everyone wins."

AWMA in Victoria are in the process of manufacturing and shipping one of the biggest fish screens in the world to New Zealand. Made up of 7 individually retractable cylinder screens, it is capable filtering flows in excess of 2,800 ML/day through a 2mm mesh at a fish-friendly approach velocity of 0.1 m/sec.

A new website launched for not only farmers, but the wider community, will showcase the benefits of self-cleaning intake screens for water pumps and gravity-fed channels and help save money and water while protecting native fish.

New fish screens being tested in Victoria and NSW may reduce the annual loss of millions of fish, turtles and even platypuses in the nation's irrigation pumps and channels. Trials of the sophisticated self-cleaning mesh domes at Cohuna near the Murray River in Victoria are looking promising two years in. Another is underway at the Trangie-Nevertire Irrigation Scheme, north-west of Dubbo in NSW."The early signs are really positive," Nicole Bullen, an environmental manager at the North Central Catchment Management Authority, said. "They help us to manage one of the many threats to native fish populations." The plight of freshwater aquatic life during the long drought in eastern Australia drew international attention, particularly after the mass fish kills at Menindee on the lower Darling River in early 2019.

Every year 100 million fish are killed by irrigation pumps throughout the Murray Darling Basin — but a simple solution could stop the carnage.A fish exclusion screen acts as a physical barrier to stop fish being sucked into large pipes and macerated. For the first time in New South Wales, a large screen is being installed on a major pump that feeds 33 farms from the Macquarie River, near Trangie. NSW Department of Primary Industries research scientist Craig Boys said the installation would save hundreds of fish a day. "It’s a huge opportunity to support the recovery of native fish in the basin," Dr Boys said. "They've been under a lot of stress lately through drought, and we've all seen the fish kills, so this is a hugely significant project." Studies have shown a single large river pump can extract 12,000 fish a day. For irrigators, dealing with the by-products of dead fish is costly and unpleasant."Once the fish get stuck in the pipes you can't get them out," irrigator Jim Winter said. "They block the screens on our sprinklers and it's time consuming to clean each nozzle. "This is a win-win for us and the environment."

Hundreds of millions of native fish are sucked up into irrigation pipes and killed every year and recreational fishers are pleading with farmers to help stop the massacres in rivers across NSW. Dubbo real estate agent and fisherman Matt Hansen travelled to Sydney for a public meeting with the cotton industry to deliver his message: let's work together to screen irrigation pumps and save the fish. "Unfortunately, we're about 100 years behind the United States in terms of protecting our fish from being sucked up in pumps," said Mr Hansen. Studies have shown 12,000 fish can be extracted by one irrigation pump in a single day, Mr Hansen told the forum. There are more than 4000 pumps in rivers across NSW that are eight inches or more in diameter.

Throughout the West, water delivery systems have been developed for a number of purposes, including agriculture. But sometimes those solutions can lead to problems for fish. One Trout Unlimited chapter is dedicated to saving fish from getting stuck and dying in irrigation canals. On a warm Sunday morning in October, I trailed behind a man with a big, boxy-looking backpack on that turns out to be an electric shocker. Two women in front of me are holding nets larger than them. They are shocking fish in an irrigation canal, netting them and eventually releasing them back into the North Fork Shoshone River. If you've never seen one, an irrigation canal is a big ditch that redirects water like a creek. The man with the electric shocker is Dave Sweet. He's been a member of the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited for over 20 years. As he shocks the water with his probe, fish stop moving and float up to the surface allowing the netters to swiftly scoop them in their nets. "Once they are trapped, the ultimate answer is to try to prevent them from being trapped [again] so you need fish-friendly screens.”

Fish populations will be compromised if screens designed to protect them continue to be non-compliant, an Environment Canterbury (ECan) report says. The report shows the majority of fish screens installed in irrigation schemes throughout Canterbury could be non-compliant which can lead to fish being harmed either on the screens themselves, by getting into irrigation intakes or not being able to return to the river. Released to Stuff under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, the report reveals that a pilot programme undertaken throughout Canterbury in winter found 83 per cent of monitored fish screens received a "C" grade, meaning there were some compliance issues that needed to be fixed.New Zealand Salmon Anglers Association spokesman Paul Hodgson says the report shows it is time for irrigation scheme holders to "actually work out what would be the most effective way of keeping fish out of irrigation channels".

Federal officials are making fish-friendly modifications to a northern Nevada dam that for more than a century has blocked off native spawning grounds for a threatened trout species that once migrated 120 miles upstream from a high-desert lake to the alpine waters of Lake Tahoe. Officials for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe broke ground Tuesday for a $23.5 million fish-passage project to help Lahontan cutthroat trout navigate the Truckee River's Derby Dam about 20 miles east of Reno. As soon as next fall, fish screens in a bypass canal longer than a football field will allow the trout – once believed to have gone extinct – to get past the dam for the first time since it was built in 1905.Commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt, the dam was part of the first major irrigation system established in the West to "help make the desert bloom," diverting water to farmers and ranchers in a region where only about 5 inches of rain falls annually. "This day is 100 years in the making," said Jody Holzworth, deputy regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "The fish screen will allow this iconic species to travel beyond Derby Dam, from Pyramid Lake to their spawning grounds, for the first time in more than a century."

HOOD RIVER, Ore. — The Farmers Conservation Alliance was born of destruction, or more precisely, destruction that inspired creativity. Twenty years ago, rushing floodwaters uprooted trees, knocked out bridges and demolished irrigation equipment in Oregon’s Hood River Valley. Faced with a clean slate, growers in the Farmers Irrigation District decided to rebuild a more efficient system than the one that had been washed away. Clogged fish screens were a common problem at the old system’s irrigation diversions. Not only would someone frequently have to remove the debris, but the mechanical devices regularly needed repair. “Any time you have moving parts, they just wear out,” said Dan Kleinsmith, a former project manager for the district. Before the flood, the Farmers Irrigation District spent about $90,000 annually to operate and maintain its fish screens, which stop salmon, steelhead and other native fish species from swimming into irrigation lines and pipes while keeping them clear.

This winter we have been lucky enough to receive more rainfall than last year. Now as we move into spring and temperatures start to rise, the evaporation rate will increase, as will the requirement for irrigation. Below are some general suggestions to follow, to help you prepare for the approaching irrigation season. These actions will maximise the opportunity for pasture growth and reduce the chance of breakdowns during the season.Farmers with surface irrigation systems can take several steps on farm to ensure their systems are working efficiently. The first and most important step is to remove vegetation, silt or other blockages from channels and drains to make sure irrigation water flows well, with minimum head loss. Anything in your channels or drains that slows down the flow of water will cause head loss and increase the chance of waterlogging or losing water to deep drainage, depending on your soil type. Heavier soils will show waterlogging issues, such as reduced pasture growth and quality, while lighter soils will lose a lot of water to deep drainage. Ensuring water flows on and off the bay as fast as possible is key to efficient surface irrigation.