Renmark Irrigation Trust Australia's first; also first to replace open drains and deliver environmental water
Renmark Irrigation Trust was the first to replace open irrigation channels with pipes. Top right: The trust's historic Renmark offices with one of the Chaffey's brothers' original pumps. Bottom right: 21st Century telemetry technology used by the trust to monitor water flows.
Open drains image courtesy Renmark irrigation Trust's McIntosh Collection.
Renmark Irrigation Trust – Australia’s first – welcomed the 2012 Murray Darling Basin Plan, with its aim to recover 3,200GL from the river system through water efficiency, as an opportunity and a chance to work more closely with governments at a state and federal level.
The Renmark Irrigation Trust in South Australia’s Riverland had led the way since 1893 in ensuring horticulturalists receive water as efficiently as possible. The Renmark irrigation settlement and trust was started by Canadian-born brothers William and George Chaffey in 1887. But the collapse of Australia’s banks in 1893 made the trust unviable.
In December 1893, Renmark Irrigation trust became the area’s first local government authority after the South Australian parliament gave it the authority to manage the irrigation settlement for its members who pay rates to access water from the River Murray.
By World War I, Renmark had two big wineries, a dried fruit packing cooperative and a cannery. Riverland towns were a major supplier of canned produce sent to troops in Europe during the two world wars. Renmark Irrigation Trust in the 21st Century continued setting benchmarks in efficiency with its management of River Murray irrigation water in Renmark and its infrastructure.
Renmark irrigators were the first in Australia to replace their water channels completely with pipes in the 1970s and the first irrigation trust to deliver environmental water. Renmark Irrigation Trust and has evolved from open channels and steam-driven pumps to a mains-powered main pump station’ network of rising mains extending to a 130-kilometre pipeline network throughout the Renmark Irrigation District.
The trust in 2012-13 was delivering 32GL a year of pressurised water to 800 irrigated properties that depended on it to water their permanent plantings of citrus, almonds, avocados, persimmons and wine grapes.
