New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE HUNTER REGULATED RIVER WATER SOURCE 2003 - REG 16

16 Planned environmental water

(1) This Plan establishes the following planned environmental water rules for the management of an environmental contingency allowance:

(a) at the start of each water year a total of 20,000 megalitres in Glenbawn and Glennies Creek water storages is to be reserved in an environmental contingency allowance account for release as specified in subclause (b),

(b) releases of water from the environmental contingency allowance account are to be made in accordance with procedures established by the Minister to assist in management of critical environmental events, such as algal blooms and chemical spills, and to provide flows at critical times for purposes such as fish migration or stony bed scouring,

(c) the volume of releases under subclause (b) debited to the environmental contingency allowance account is to be the volume of releases in excess of those necessary to meet all other water requirements, and

(d) any volume remaining in the environmental contingency allowance account at the end of a water year is to be forfeited from the account.

(2) This Plan establishes the following planned environmental water rule in relation to periods when access to uncontrolled flows is declared under clause 50 or supplementary water access licences are permitted to extract water under clause 51:

(a) 50% of the daily flow in each river reach defined in Schedule 3 is to be protected during periods when access to uncontrolled flows or access under supplementary water access licences is declared.

Note: In addition to these rules, there are significant restrictions on the proportion of flow that can be taken during each water year and when extractions under supplementary water access licences can occur (see Part 8 Division 2 and Part 9 Division 2 of the Act). These rules do not meet the Act’s definition of planned environmental water, because they do not “commit” water to the environment as they do not prevent use of these flows to supply water allocated to access licences, other than supplementary water access licences. Nevertheless, they will result in the protection of a major proportion of medium to high flows for the environment and ensure that these flows pass through this water source into the Hunter estuary. It is anticipated that, in all but the most exceptional years, at least 70% of total annual flows in this water source in excess of the 40 th percentile flow level will pass through to the estuary.