Murray-Darling Basin: fight looms over NSW plan to license floodplain harvesting

Greens warn legalising the capture of floodwaters and diverting it to primarily irrigate cotton spells end of the lower Darling river'

A new fight is brewing between farmers north and south of the Murrray-Darling Basin over the New South Wales government's plan to license floodplain harvesting for the first time later this year, as doubts arise over data on river flows and the amounts being extracted.

A regulation which makes the practice legal in the meantime is set to become the flashpoint this week, with the minor parties and Labor planning to disallow it.