Environment Victoria: news on the Proposed Basin Plan for the Murray-Darling and Water Restrictions status in Victoria

From Environment Victoria

Time to take action on the Basin Plan

You might have seen us on Channel 7 or ABC news on 28 November, holding a funeral for the Murray (you can see the Flickr photos here). The draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan came out that morning, and proposed returning just 2,750 billion litres of water to our rivers and not the 4,000 billion litres our rivers need. The good news is that the draft is just a draft, and you can help change it. Please speak up on the Basin Plan by helping us reach our target of 4000 submissions (one for each billion litres the river needs) – you can do it here in a couple of minutes, or even better, write your own personalised submission. There's plenty of background on the draft Basin Plan on our website.

Speak up on the Basin Plan by clicking here>

More chances to find out about it coming up

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has a series of public meetings scheduled, including one in Shepparton on December 13. Environment Victoria will also be holding a series of workshops in the New Year, so watch this space for more info.
 You can get the details of the MDBA meetings here >

Three ways the Basin Plan fails

So what exactly's wrong with the draft Basin Plan? Read our media release for three key ways it's failed.
Our media release on the Basin Plan >

Water restrictions in Melbourne eased - 

Sending the wrong message?

On Friday, Victorian Water Minister Peter Walsh announced that Melbourne is dropping back to stage one water restrictions. We're worried that this sends the wrong message to the community, who have done a great job of reducing their water use over the last few years. As our CEO told the ABC, there's a risk "that people can just forget about the last drought we've gone through".
Watch the ABC's coverage >