Tasmania has completed final works and officially opened the first irrigation scheme in the state’s north-east under its irrigation development plan.

 

The $4.5 million Headquarters Road dam near Scottsdale will deliver extra water to farmers in the upper catchment of the Great Forester River Valley.

 

The Headquarters Road dam is expected to deliver water for an irrigable area of about 1,800 hectares.

 

 The Federal and State governments funded just over half the cost of construction with farmers contributing the remainder through the purchase of water rights to the 1980 megalitre scheme.

 

The Headquarters Road dam forms part of the State Government’s $220 million irrigation development plan to expand the state’s irrigation network and is expected to be matched by private investment.

 

The Tasmanian Government has confirmed that construction of $88 million Midlands scheme, the largest ever in the State, is on track to begin in the first half of next year.