Northern Tasmania's agricultural industry will be boosted by access to extra high-surety irrigation water.
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Planned augmentations to the Greater Meander Irrigation District are set to free up about 11,000 megalitres.
That project is expected to involve upgrading pump intakes, renewing the Cheshunt drainage channel, extending existing pipelines, and constructing new ones.
The works are set to allow for the additional water to travel from the Meander Dam to agricultural land located North-East of the Bass Highway, near Deloraine, with the potential for Caveside, Rubicon, Quamby, and Hagley to benefit as well.
The dam, which was constructed in November 2007, is the centrepiece of the existing 28,800 megalitre irrigation scheme that services more than 10 areas within the region, including Carrick, Deloraine, and Westbury.
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As of Friday, farmers in the area are able to contractually apply for water entitlements as part of Tasmanian Irrigation's Water Sales process, which is set to run until June 24. TI's chief executive Andrew Kneebone said the state-owned company set an entitlement price of $1550 per megalitre, and revealed the profit from those sales would fund the proposed infrastructure upgrades.
Mr Kneebone said the overall cost of the project wouldn't be known until the Water Sales process had concluded and consumer demand was understood.
However, based on expressions of interest that surpassed the 11,000 megalitres available, Mr Kneebone believed the project value would be about $20 million.
"In the Greater Meander area, we have farmers continually asking for more water to expand their agricultural businesses focussed on berries, dairy, vegetables, poppies, nuts, and pasture for livestock," he said.
Funding for those works was further boosted on Friday when Lyons Liberal candidate Susie Bower announced the federal government had secured $5 million to contribute toward the project.
Minutes later, Minister for primary Industries and water, Jo Palmer, said the state government had allocated $2 million to assist in funding the upgrade of the Meander mini hydro power station.
Hemp, Potato, and beef cattle farmer Tim Schmidt has owned his property just off Mole Creek Road in Red Hills for more than 20 years. He said while living in southern Queensland he had witnessed the "tragedies" poor irrigation could cause.
"When this scheme was first augmented we were one of the first to sign up, because we understood its value ... it's given us incredible underlying security in all of our production enterprises," he said.
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