New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE LOWER LACHLAN GROUNDWATER SOURCE 2003 - REG 29

29 Available water determinations

(1) This Division is made in accordance with section 20 (2) (b) of the Act.

(2) Pursuant to section 58 (4) of the Act, this Plan amends the relative priorities of the categories of aquifer access licence and supplementary water access licence to the extent necessary to legally make the available water determinations as set out in this clause.

(3) All available water determinations in this groundwater source shall be expressed as either:

(a) a percentage of the share component for all access licences where share components are specified as megalitres per year, or

(b) megalitres per unit of share component for all access licences where share components are specified as a number of shares.

(4) An available water determination for each category of access licence in this groundwater source should be made at the commencement of each water year.

(5) The available water determinations made at the commencement of each water year for domestic and stock and local water utility access licences should be 100% of share components.

(6) The available water determination made at the commencement of each water year for water access licences should be such that the total of available water determinations under this clause equals the extraction limit set in clause 27 (2) as varied by clause 28 minus the total available water determinations for domestic and stock access licence minus total available water determinations for local water utility access licences minus total available water determinations for supplementary water access licences minus the requirements for basic landholder rights at the commencement of this Plan, or such lower amount as results from the operation of clause 28A (3).

(7) The available water determination made at the commencement of this Plan for supplementary water access licences should be 1 ML per unit of share component.

(8) The available water determination made at the commencement of each year after the 2007/08 water year for supplementary water access licences will be reduced by 0.1 ML per unit of share component each year, and

(9) The available water determination for supplementary water access licences will be reduced to 0 ML per unit of share component at the commencement of the 2017/18 water year.

Note: Subclause (8) means that allocations for supplementary water access licences will diminish each year by 0.1 ML per unit share each year from 2008/09. Thus, the available water determination for 1 February 2008 to 30 June 2008 is 1 ML, 2008/09 water year is 0.9 ML, 2009/10 water year is 0.8 ML, 2010/11 water year is 0.7 ML, 2011/12 water year is 0.6 ML, 2012/13 water year is 0.5 ML, 2013/14 water year is 0.4 ML, 2014/15 water year is 0.3 ML, 2015/16 water year is 0.2 ML, 2016/17 water year is 0.1 ML and 2017/18 water year is 0 ML.