New South Wales Consolidated Regulations

WATER SHARING PLAN FOR THE NSW GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN GROUNDWATER SOURCES 2008 - REG 34

34 Available water determinations

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

(2) 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 ML/year, or

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

(3) An available water determination for each category of access licence in these groundwater sources should be made at the commencement of each water year.

(4) The available water determinations made at the commencement of the water year for local water utility access licences, domestic and stock (conveyance) access licences and aquifer (interference) access licences in these groundwater sources should be 100% of those licences share components.

(5) The available water determination made at the commencement of this Plan for aquifer access licences in the Southern Recharge, Surat, Warrego and Central Groundwater Sources should be 1 ML per unit of share component, and for acquifer access licences in the Eastern Recharge Groundwater Source should be 0.8 ML per unit of share component.

(6) From year 2 of this Plan the available water determination made at the commencement of the water year for aquifer access licences in all groundwater sources should be an amount that would not cause total extractions to exceed the respective annual extraction limit specified in clause 31 or such lower amount as results from the operation of clause 33 (3).

(7) If supplementary water access licences are established in the Eastern Recharge or the Southern Recharge Groundwater Sources in accordance with clause 25 (1) then the available water determination made at the commencement of the water year for those licences shall be:

(a) 1 ML per unit of share component in years 2-5,

(b) 0.8 ML per unit of share component in year 6,

(c) 0.6 ML per unit of share component in year 7,

(d) 0.4 ML per unit of share component in year 8,

(e) 0.2 ML per unit of share component in year 9, and

(f) 0 ML per unit of share component in year 10.

(9) This Plan amends the relative priorities of the categories of aquifer access licence and supplementary water access licence to the extent necessary to make the available water determinations as set out in this clause.