THE State government has started carting water for emergency water supplies for animal welfare needs south of Newdegate, in the Lake Grace Shire, after Water Minister Dave Kelly declared a water deficiency covering the Ardler Road area last week.
The official declaration follows an application from the shire on behalf of seven farmers in the area.
A declaration is made as a last resort after continued dry conditions have depleted on-farm and State government managed community water supplies.
The government is expected to cart an estimated 920,000 litres of water each week to a new tank at the Ardler Road dam site, reducing the distance farmers need to travel to source emergency livestock water.
Water will be supplied from several sources, including a disused scheme in Newdegate and other areas in Lake Grace.
South Newdegate sheep producer Chris Walker was one of the seven farmers who applied for assistance and said while he had tried to drought proof as best they could, two years without enough rain had destroyed any hope of getting through the summer without assistance.
"We have done everything we can to drought proof the farm," Mr Walker said.
"We are hoping to get through to March but will need a lot of luck.
"We are hoping for summer rains."
The efforts to drought proof the property included building new dams and cleaning out four existing ones which had been filled with flood water and soot after a storm front hit the area last year.
Mr Walker operates a mixed cropping and sheep farm, with 1400 ewes, 700 hoggets and about 1200 lambs.
He said he had received 170mm of rain for the growing season and just 190mm since October 2018.
The average in the past 10 years was about 300mm.
Mr Walker said the sheep had some feed because of the stubbles and work they had done with serradellas but "at this stage, water is going to be a restriction".
"There has been a 50mm difference from here to Newdegate town which makes a difference," he said.
"We've been lucky so far but we are coming on line to start carting water and we'll offload some more lambs as well.
"Carting water is a dead end job - it's never ending.
"It's a management nightmare."
Another one of the seven farmers was Trevor de Landgrafft who operates a mixed cropping and sheep enterprise in the area.
He said last year was the worst he had seen it in 40 years on the farm and this year was shaping up to be similar.
"Last year we had to cart water for the first time in my farming career," Mr de Landgrafftsaid.
"We carted three loads a week with a road train.
"We had a practice run last year and that was difficult enough.
"We are expecting more of the same and this year we'll probably do more."
Mr de Landgrafft said they were caught by surprise last year and had to cart more water in than what they thought because previous flooding had filled the dams with sediment.
"Last year was the most difficult year to manage livestock that we've experienced," he said
Since then they had reduced their stocking rate from about 10,000 head of sheep to 7000 by offloading older ewes and wethers which he said was unfortunate because they were some of the main wool producers.
"We've already destocked about 2000 lambs than we normally would as well as a mob of older sheep," he said.
"You really need to have some flexibility there."
Mr de Landgrafft said droughts were not cheap especially with livestock because more money would be spent and he would have to work harder to look after the animals.
"Keeping costs down is critical but with livestock it is a seven day a week job and you simply have to spend the money to look after them," he said.
Last year in an effort to be more resilient they purchased water tanks and troughs and thought they were "reasonably prepared", though the rain didn't fall like they hoped it would, only receiving 200mm - as opposed to the average 350mm.
Mr de Landgrafft said the lack of rain was affecting more than just water and grass growth, it had also resulted in a "poor harvest" - though it was not a total disaster.
"Cropping is a major part of our enterprise," he said.
"Breaking even would be a fantastic result, but I doubt that.
"If we haven't got stock water we haven't got spray water - summer spray for crops and in-crop spraying.
"Without that it is going to be a lot worse this year."
Mr de Landgraft was expecting that by Christmas he would have "not much water left" and with 7000 head of sheep drinking four litres a day "you do the math (28,000L per day) - that's a lot of water we need".
He said he was happy that the government had been proactive since the issue started to arise in Lake Grace and the Ravensthorpe Shires and they had been listening to producers and watching what was going on.
Lake Magenta sheep and crop producer Doug Giles who rallied the farmers to receive the assistance said the declaration meant "everything to us".
"It keeps our livestock going," Mr Giles said.
"We have got to be thankful to the government."
Mr Giles said once he spoke to the right person the process for receiving assistance happened fairly quickly.
He said he was worse off than some of the other livestock producers in the area because he ran 70 per cent sheep and 30pc crops as opposed to the other way around - thus needing more water than others.
"We've been carting water since November," he said.
"We've destocked 25pc already and are down a bit to 4500 ewes.
"Both our key dams are dry."
Mr Giles said the issue had been going on for about 22 months since a flood hit.
"We haven't had much rain since then," he said.
In efforts to drought proof the property he had used his own equipment to prepare on-farm catchment areas for the next time it rained and was hoping for summer rains to fill the dams and tanks and alleviate the concerns.
Mr Giles installed a desalination plant on farm five years ago which was "producing 100,000L a week at the moment" but he needed to upgrade the power supply because he had suffered four to five blackouts in the past month.
In one instance he didn't have power to the farm for 20 hours.
Mr Giles said livestock producers had ways to deal with a lack of rain and back-up plans in place, but having to spend two to three hours a day carting water was taking its toll.
"It is unfortunate that seven to eight hours a week is lost just carting water," he said.
Mr Kelly said "due to the impacts of climate change, this year is tracking to be the second driest year on record for Lake Grace".
"To date just 193.4mm of rainfall has been received, compared to the average of 384mm received between 2012 and 2017," he said.
"The State government cares about our WA farming communities and the welfare of animals is a priority.
"Without the State government declaring a water deficiency and carting water to this area, some farmers would have had to travel up to 60 kilometres to access water for stock."
Mr Kelly said in the past 18 months the State government had invested more than $1.1m developing and upgrading 18 community water supplies in the south-east Wheatbelt.
"This compares to the previous government's investment of just $780,000 in the whole Wheatbelt region over their full eight-and-a-half-year term," he said.
Water carting arrangements are being managed by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) with support from the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and the Water Corporation.
Adler Road is the second area within Lake Grace Shire and the fourth water deficiency to be declared in WA this year, as dry conditions continue in the South West.
Water deficiencies have also been declared in the shires of Ravensthorpe and Kent.
DWER is liaising with local government authorities and farmers in other dryland areas to monitor their on-farm water storage and water requirements, and encourages Community Water Supply Program grant applications in areas of need.
Agriculture and Food Minister Alannah MacTiernan said "water availability for livestock continues to be a challenge in areas affected by below average winter rainfall".
"The top priority is to ensure the welfare of livestock and these water deficiency declarations will help farmers to access emergency livestock water supplies," Ms MacTiernan said.
"We are continuing to closely monitor seasonal conditions and offering support where needed."
