Like Toolondo, Lake Lonsdale – which is presently holding just 2010 megalitres or four per cent of water – is also in dire need of a top-up of water from Lake Bellfield.

We urge council to immediately lobby the new government to supply enough water into the lake to retain environmental aspects of the lake and to save fish kills.

Unfortunately, we have some concerns of the new government’s pre-election platform to support anglers, such as the Toolondo water top-up.

Firstly, the Labor party promised the supply of water into the lake if it won the election, which it did.

Unfortunately, it was paid for by a mining company, not supplied by the Andrews government.

So, who is going to pay for the next lot of water, as Lake Toolondo can only be filled by channel from Rocklands Reservoir?

Secondly, who is paying for the 5000 to 6000 megalitres of water that Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water, GWMWater, is currently channelling into Lake Fyans?

Why does Toolondo have to be paid for but not Fyans?

Another point is when the previous government came into office, it filled Green Lake for no cost.

The current situation with recreational water is a complete shambles.

We urge council to lobby the new premier and water minister as to the importance that recreational water is to local communities, not only the social and environmental aspects but also the economic and tourism benefits associated with recreational water.

The Grampians region is a major tourist area in Victoria, but we don’t promote our magnificent lakes.

We have the infrastructure to accommodate the angling tourist already in place, as we are already a tourist destination.

We have lakes such as Lonsdale, Fyans, Bellfield, Wartook, Taylors, Toolondo and Rocklands in the Grampians area.

These lakes could be used to stock fish such as bass, estuary perch, macquarie perch as well as the murray cod, trout, catfish, golden and silver perch and redfin that we now offer to anglers.

Angling is a billion-dollar industry with more than 750,000 anglers in Victoria alone.

This is a huge industry that we have the potential to tap into.

The only thing stopping us from establishing a fishing tourist precinct is the current operational rules of lakes Lonsdale, Bellfield and Toolondo.

We have the capacity to have the best inland fishery in the state.

To do so we need to guarantee a minimum useable supply of recreational water to both lakes Lonsdale and Toolondo, and to also allow restricted operation of power boats on Lake Bellfield.

We have enough water for all to share.

The mean annual flow of the Wimmera Basin is 316,400 megalitres which supplies water to lakes Wartook, Lonsdale, Fyans and Bellfield.

The Rocklands Basin also has a mean annual inflow of 112,500 megalitres.

With the construction of the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline, the water saving was 102,000 megalitres annually.

So where has this water gone to? As well as the water saved from the recent buyout of irrigation leases?

Local communities have not benefited from these savings.

It is now time that GWMWater and the government addressed not only the importance that recreational water has with the social, recreational, tourism and environmental aspects to local communities, but also the economic benefits as well.

To highlight this aspect, Linqage International did an economic input into the regional economy of Lake Fyans when water levels were low.

During the millenium drought the total direct economic input was then $4.095 million, and a total direct and indirect economic input of $12 million.

The economic input into the region from Lake Fyans when the increases of water levels in 2011 were significant indicated a total direct economic input of $7.776 million, with a total direct and indirect input of $23.3 million.

This is near a 100 per cent increase and clearly shows the importance of recreational water to our local communities.

Not only is this a very significant increase in our economy but also it creates much-needed jobs.

Do we now need to ask the government to do an economic survey into recreational water into our region?

We ask council to consider this proposal and to take this up with our new government.