New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE LOWER MURRUMBIDGEE GROUNDWATER SOURCES 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 these groundwater sources 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 these groundwater sources should be made at the commencement of each water year.

(5) The available water determinations made at the commencement of the 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 the water year for aquifer access licences should be such that the total of available water determinations under this clause for each groundwater source equals the extraction limit set in clause 27 (2) as varied by clause 28 minus the total requirements for basic landholder rights, minus the total available water determinations for domestic and stock and local water utility access licences and supplementary water access licences, or such lower amount as results from the operation of clause 28A (3) or subclause (7).

(7) The available water determination for all aquifer access licences in the Shallow Groundwater Source will not exceed 1 ML per unit of share component.

(8) The available water determination made at the commencement of this plan for supplementary water access licences should be 0.9 ML per unit of share component.

(9) The available water determination made at the commencement of each year after the 2006/07 water year for supplementary water access licences will be reduced by a further 0.1 ML per unit of share component, and

(10) 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 2015/16 water year.

Note: Subclauses (9) and (10) means that allocations for supplementary water access licences will diminish each year by 0.1 ML per unit share. For example, the available water determination for the 2006/07 water year is 0.9, the 2007/08 water year is 0.8, the 2008/9 water year is 0.7, the 2009/10 water year is 0.6, the 2010/11 water year is 0.5, the 2011/12 water year is 0.4, the 2012/13 water year is 0.3, 2013/14 water year is 0.2, the 2014/15 water year is 0.1, and the 2015/16 water year is 0.