New South Wales Consolidated Acts

WATER MANAGEMENT ACT 2000 - SECT 53

53 Harvestable rights

(1) An owner or occupier of a landholding within a harvestable rights area is entitled, without the need for any access licence, water supply work approval or water use approval:

(a) to construct and use a dam for the purpose of capturing and storing rainwater run-off, and

(b) to use water that has been captured and stored by a dam so constructed,

in accordance with the harvestable rights order by which the area is constituted.

(2) A single dam may be used both for rainwater run-off that has been captured and other water that has been lawfully taken from a water source, but only if the harvestable rights order so provides.

(3) This section does not allow a landholder:

(a) to supply any other land with water that has been captured and stored under this section, or

(b) to construct or use a dam that obstructs the flow of a river, unless the river is declared by the relevant harvestable rights order to be a minor stream for the purposes of this Division.