System: Loss and Jobs

system: The Murray Darling Basin Authority released a damning report showing the loss of jobs in the northern NSW and southern Queensland due to water buy backs, according to Australian Broadcasting Corporation. But in the south of the system, where no such investigation is planned, communities say they are seeing the same, if not worse, impacts. Related Story: Water recovery efforts hitting northern communities hard, MDBA finds Map: Mildura 3500 Farmers in the southern Murray-Darling Basin are calling for the social and economic impacts of the Basin Plan in their area to be investigated. Wakool River Association chairman John Lolicato said the same attention needed to be paid to the south. "We've got no confidence in the MDBA and the way that they do their studies," he said. "We desperately need an independent social economic study done of the southern connected system and I think it will make a lot of people hair stand on end when the results come out. "Because anecdotally you've only got to live in these areas to know the damage that is being done. "It can't continue the way it is. The statement said the authority was preparing for an interim evaluation of the Basin Plan in 2017. "This will give us an opportunity to review the socio-economic and environmental benefits of the Basin Plan, and the effect of its introduction. "Just like the approach used in the northern basin, this socio-economic analysis will need to be done against the backdrop of all the other factors affecting basin communities. "Currently there is a great opportunity in the southern basin to improve the social and economic outcomes through the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism. "This will be done through projects which enable the environmental outcomes from the Basin Plan to be achieved with less water." Family driving 900 kilometres a week Irrigator Peter McDonald said the removal of irrigation water from south west New South Wales had led to a production and population dive. You can't keep on undermining the social fabric that keeps those communities together." Interim evaluation will look at effect of plan The MDBA said in a statement that a full regulation impact statement was undertaken in the southern basin when the plan was agreed upon. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.