SA: Rann calls for extra water for SA

AAP General News (Australia)
04-09-2007
SA: Rann calls for extra water for SA

ADELAIDE, April 9 AAP - South Australian Premier Mike Rann has called on the federal
government to allocate an extra 200 gigalitres of upstream River Murray water to the state.

Mr Rann has asked for the extra environmental flows as part of the agreement under
which the federal government will take charge of the river system.

The premier said that while in-principle agreement had been reached to hand over the
state's powers on the Murray to the commonwealth, there were still details to be sorted
out, including flow allocations.

But, he said, he was confident the deal could be finalised within the next few months.

"I'm confident that we are going to get a good outcome out of this," Mr Rann told the ABC.

"I think that everyone wants to see it work and the letter I wrote to the prime minister
was about ironing out some of the details so we can sign off on it formally," he said.

Mr Rann said he believed Australia now had a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reconfigure
allocations so that in times of extremely low flows Adelaide and other urban centres could
have adequate water supplies.

But Foreign Minister and the federal member for the South Australian seat of Mayo,
Alexander Downer, said the problem of increasing flows to South Australia was a lack of
water in the Murray system.

"The more environmental flows we can get into South Australia the better, we all believe
that," Mr Downer said.

"The problem with the River Murray at the moment is a lack of water, full stop.

"The water is not coming from the heavens in sufficient quantities."

Mr Downer said he hoped a combination of the federal government taking over the running
of the Murray-Darling system and more rainfall in the catchment areas would permit greater
flows to South Australia.

"At the moment, the problem has just simply been a lack of rainfall in the catchment
areas," he said.

"So when we're talking about extra allocations, we can't even fulfil our current allocation
because of such a shortage of water."

AAP tjd/cjh/cdh

KEYWORD: MURRAY SA

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