Past review
The Central Lockyer Valley Water Supply Scheme is located near the town of Gatton in South East Queensland.
The Central Lockyer Valley scheme supplies water for the Morton Vale Pipeline, recharges the groundwater areas adjacent to Lockyer Creek, and supplies downstream area-based surface-water entitlements.
The scheme is located in the Clarendon Sub-artesian area which is a benefitted groundwater area, with irrigators metered and charged for groundwater use.
Major water assets include the Clarendon and Bill Gunn dams.
The QCA has released its final recommended prices for the Central LockyerValley scheme for 2013-17. The Minister accepted the QCA’s recommendations.
Central Lockyer Valley water charges
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | |
| Fixed ($/ML WAE) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 26.43 |
| Variable ($/ML Use) | 9.89 | 10.13 | 10.39 | 10.65 |
Morton Vale Pipeline water charges
| 2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | |
| Fixed ($/ML WAE) | 27.46 | 30.20 | 33.05 | 36.03 |
| Variable ($/ML Use) | 13.10 | 13.43 | 13.77 | 14.11 |
In the Central Lockyer Valley water supply scheme, cost-reflective volumetric charges are lower when compared to 2012-13. To maintain revenues, the balance not recouped by volumetric charges is recovered by fixed charges which are higher when they are reintroduced in 2016-17.
In Morton Vale Pipeline, the volumetric charge is lower and the fixed charge higher when compared to 2012-13.
As current revenues are below cost-reflective revenues, the QCA recommends price paths where fixed charges increase annually by $2 per ML (plus inflation) until cost-reflective levels are reached.
Volumetric charges are increased at inflation over the balance of the regulatory period.
This Seqwater water scheme review forms part of the review that the QCA undertook in 2012-13 for the Queensland Government: the Seqwater Irrigation Price Review 2013–17.
You can read more about the pricing review on our project home page. You can also view the submissions for the water schemes that we received, the consultants’ reports and issues arising from face-to-face consultation with stakeholders.
We recommended a new irrigation price path, to apply from July 2013 to June 2017 – with prices moving in a direction that better reflect costs.
- Key to the findings were the recovery of Seqwater’s costs and the smoothing of future price increases.
- All Seqwater schemes will now have two-part tariffs consisting of a fixed (Part A) price per megalitre (ML) of nominal water allocation and a usage (Part B) price per ML of water use.
- For the majority of schemes, our recommended prices result in increases to fixed prices and reductions in usage prices.