Water

waterWater management in NSW is administered by the Department of Water and Energy. Water planning, works and licensing is primarily regulated through the Water Management Act 2000.

There are a variety of publicly accessible documents relating to water. These include register of water sharing plans, approvals and water access licences.

1. Water Sharing Plans

A Water Sharing Plan is a legal document prepared under the Water Management Act 2000. It establishes rules for sharing water between the environmental needs of the river or aquifer and water users, and also between different types of water users such as town supply, rural domestic supply, stock watering, industry and irrigation. Eventually all water management in NSW will be covered by water sharing plans. Up-to-date information on current water sharing plans and those in draft form can be found here:

http://naturalresources.nsw.gov.au/water/sharing_plans.shtml

2. Approvals and licences

The former Department of Natural Resources maintained 6 publicly accessible water registers. These registers are still up and running and will probably be integrated into the Department of Environment and Climate Change website soon. The site is located here:

http://www.wma.dnr.nsw.gov.au/wma/index.jsp

Using the variety of searches available on this site you can access up-to-date information on various consents and activities under the Water Management Act 2000.

Approvals

The Water Management Act 2000 requires public access to a register of approvals to provide information for the general public and water users. This is available on the former Department of Natural Resources website. Using the search functions provided, individuals can access up-to-date information about the status of approvals. The approvals register contains information on:

The register can be found here:

http://www.wma.dnr.nsw.gov.au/wma/ApprovalSearch.jsp?selectedRegister=Approval

Water Access Licences

Water access licences allow the holder to have access to a share of the water available under a water sharing plan. The amount of water that can be extracted under these licences will depend on the availability of water in the water source.

Basic information on water access licences is provided through the Water Access Licence Conditions Register. This online search provides basic information on water access licences (WALs) under the Water Management Act 2000 in NSW. Information on the register includes the following:

To search the Water Access Licence Conditions Register follow this link:

http://www.wma.dnr.nsw.gov.au/wma/AccessLicenceSearch.jsp?selectedRegister=AccessLicense

However, detailed, full and up-to-date information on Water Access Licences including names of licence holders, encumbrances, share and extraction components (but excluding conditions) is only available on the Access Licence Register run by Department of Lands. The current fee is $10.50 per search plus GST. Hard copies can be obtained or you can purchase this information online through the use of a credit card:

https://lpi-online.lpi.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/lpis/menu.pl

The WAL Register has a separate record for each water access licence issued (called hereafter a WAL folio). Each WAL folio has a unique number for identification purposes, the first being "WAL1". The WAL folio shows water access licence details such as:

You can also employ an approved information broker to find what you need for you. A list of these is found at the following link:

https://lpi-online.lpi.nsw.gov.au/lpsearch/brokers.html

3. State Water data

This link provides state-wide information that includes river data, daily river reports and storage reports. To search the data follow this link:

http://www.dnr.nsw.gov.au/water/data.shtml