Murrumbidgee Irrigation Limited (MI) is one of five privately owned irrigation companies in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It provides irrigation water and drainage services to an area known as the

Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area The Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA) is geographically located within the Riverina area of New South Wales. It was created to control and divert the flow of local river and creek systems for the purpose of food production. The main river s ...

(MIA). MI manages 500 million of infrastructure assets, has an annual turnover of $40 million, and services over 2.5 billion in water entitlements.

History

The

(MIA) was established in 1912 following the commissioning of

Burrinjuck Dam Burrinjuck Dam is a gated, concrete-walled hydro-electric gravity dam at Burrinjuck, in the South West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia. It has three spillways across the Murrumbidgee River and forms an impounded reservoir called La ...

in the

Snowy Mountains The Snowy Mountains, known informally as "The Snowies", is an IBRA subregion in southern New South Wales, Australia, and is the tallest mountain range in mainland Australia, being part of the continent's Great Dividing Range, a cordillera syste ...

. The MIA was originally conceived primarily as a gravitational irrigation system near the

Murrumbidgee River The Murrumbidgee River () is a major tributary of the Murray River within the Murray–Darling basin and the second longest river in Australia. It flows through the Australian state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, desce ...

Yanco, New South Wales Yanco is a village in Leeton Shire in south western New South Wales, Australia. Yanco is a Wiradhuri language, Wiradjuri aboriginal language word meaning ''the sound of running water''. Yanco is located from Leeton, New South Wales, Leeton alon ...

. Further expansion occurred in the 1970s with the completion of the

Snowy Mountains Scheme The Snowy Mountains Scheme, also known as the Snowy Hydro or the Snowy scheme, is a hydroelectricity and irrigation in Australia, irrigation complex in south-east Australia. Near the border of New South Wales and Victoria (Australia), Victoria, ...

and the construction of the Blowering Dam. In 1999 the MIA and Districts were formally separated from the ownership by the

Government of New South Wales The Government of New South Wales, also known as the NSW Government, is the executive state government of New South Wales, Australia. The government comprises 11 portfolios, led by a ministerial department and supported by several agencies. Th ...

and now operate as an unlisted public company (limited by permanent shares owned by its customers - the local irrigators). The company builds the Roach’s Surge Reservoir near Yanco, holding up to 5 million tonnes of water.

References

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External links

Murrumbidgee Irrigation Limited homepage
Privately held companies of Australia Riverina Irrigation in Australia Water management in New South Wales Water companies of New South Wales Companies based in New South Wales Irrigation companies Agriculture companies of Australia