A water expert has warned that buying Australia's biggest cotton farm and its water rights for environmental flows would only marginally help the Murray River recover.
Cubbie Station, a 93,000ha irrigation property in southwest Queensland, is to be placed in the hands of administrators on Friday afternoon after it was badly hit by drought and potential buyers failed to meet the expected price from its operators.
The Australian Conservation Foundation and other green groups say the situation now presents an opportunity for the federal, Queensland and NSW governments to revisit plans to buy the massive station and free its potential 538 billion litres of water back into the Murray-Darling River system for environmental flows.
Under laws applying to southwest Queensland, water rights can't be separated from the property, so both would have to be bought.
University of Adelaide Environment Institute director Professor Mike Young said that while the Darling River system in northern NSW may benefit from the flows, the Murray further south would not.
"Very little of it would get through to River Murray - about 10 to 15 per cent at best," Prof Young told AAP.
"So the benefits of leaving the water in the river would largely be in the north, not in the southern part of the system."
However, he said the water was needed more urgently in the south.
"The priority's in the south - money for (water) buyback is scarce and at this stage is much better spent sourcing water in the southern connected River Murray system - the Murrumbidgee, Murray and Victorian tributaries into the Murray."
Prof Young said even if it was a "bargain sale" it would still not be value for money.
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