Water Use Rights and Transferability
Bulk water entitlements are currently being established in the East Gippsland region. Victoria has made some progress in meeting the COAG reforms in relation to clarification of property rights by formalising existing bulk water entitlements (both consumptive and environmental). The bulk water entitlement conversion process is based on recognition of existing infrastructure, and community investment, of each water supply system. In many systems this may result in bulk entitlements being issued for greater volume than is currently used. Under these arrangements there is the potential for the environment to suffer, and so Victoria has established an environmental review panel to assess the likely impact on downstream flow and review storage operation to identify opportunities for increased environmental flows (Allan and Lovett, 1996).
Water use rights and Transferable Water Entitlements (TWEs) are administered in East Gippsland by Southern Rural Water (external link).
© The State of Victoria, 1996 - 2012.
This document was last reviewed on 11/12/2008