We are calling upon the Minister for Water, the Hon. Harriet Shing to intervene immediately to ensure that The Board and Management of Goulburn-Murray Water make the necessary changes to secure the water supply for Mt Buller. We specifically call upon the Chair Diane James AM, Deputy Chair Patrick McNamara and Managing Director Charmaine Quick to directly intervene to stop the bureaucratic inertia that is preventing the Mt Buller Community from filling our dam year round.

In addition, we call upon the Minister for Tourism, the Hon. Steve Dimopoulus, to insist that the resolution of this matter be an immediate priority for the Government and for Alpine Resorts Victoria and provide all necessary support to ARV CEO, Ms Amber Gardner.

Background

In 2020, with the generous support of the Victorian State Government , Buller Ski Lifts and the Mt Buller Community, the new 100 Megaliter Boggy Creek Dam was commissioned to provide secure water supply to Mt Buller. This was designed to provide town water, summer firefighting reserves and winter snow-making capability to secure the $556m economic contribution of winter recreation to the state.

In a classic case of two arms of Government not being able to coordinate,  Mt Buller now has dam that cannot be filled at the time of greatest need. Water pumping rights extend from May to November, regardless of levels of rainfall at other times of the year. The mountain needs the right to fill the dam year-round, within the limits of its allocation and provided environmental flows are adequate.

As a consequence of the current constraints on pumping, in 2024, the dam was empty at the start of the snowsports season, costing the state an estimated $95m in economic impact and 532 FTE Jobs.   The community needs the ability to fill the dam when environmental conditions provide sufficient run-off to both maintain environmental flows and protect the security of Mt Buller’s water supply. We are not asking for an increase in water allocations, merely the right to fill the dam when the water is flowing.

The resolution of this issue has not been deemed a priority by any arm of Government, such that we face the same potential loss in 2025. The time to resolve this issue is now.