A third-generation farmer at Harrogate says water collection stations in the Hills are “better than nothing”, but don’t address shortages of water for livestock.
It follows the State Government’s decision last week to set up roadside water collection points at Woodside, Brukunga and Sandergrove, where SA Water is selling drinking water for $28 per kilolitre between 7am and 7pm each day.
But cattle farmer Gary Paine said water points won’t provide any relief for pastoralists facing critical shortages of water for their livestock.
“I’m worried that if we don’t get a half-reasonable break, it’ll really hit the fan,” he said.
“The real crunch hasn’t hit yet ... I estimate it’ll be in the next three or four weeks, there’s going to be a lot of people who are at least close to running out of water.”
Mr Paine said the huge demand for water carting services was evident, with orders taking four or more weeks to fulfil despite the late hours many of those businesses were working.
“I’ll take my hat off. I saw a water carting tank up the road here at 11pm the other night, so they’re trying,” he said.
“I’m thinking about going on a wait list for water to get carted here. I’m not far off of it ... but I think a lot of us are too proud at times to want to put our hands up and ask for help.”
Three of the four dams on his 87ha property are nearly dry, while the one with the most water is at less than 20% of capacity.
“I’m nervous as to how much water we’ve got left,” he said. “It’s the lowest we’ve ever had, even going back past ’82, which was the last bad year we had.
“The fact that we’ve only had about 3mm of rain in the last three months just shows you how dry it is.”
Mr Paine said there was a lot of concern among Hills pastoralists about the lack of hay growth due to persistently dry soil, which was putting upward pressure on the price of ordering hay in to feed livestock.
“I’m paying $180 a roll of hay,” he said.
“When conditions aren’t like this, it’s about $110.”
While admitting that the State Government helping meet the shortage of drinking water for residents was “better than nothing”, Mr Paine said CFS and council water tankers should be used to address water shortages.
He said that based on the current conditions and resource availability, the flow-on effect would be that farmers sell off even more livestock than they have already, restricting their future income and resulting in less spending on machinery and supplies.
“The secondary businesses – like the hardware store, the car salesmen, machinery blokes – we’re all not going to be spending money on that stuff if we haven’t got it in our pocket,” he said.
