A Riverina irrigator has been convicted and fined $156,250 for illegally taking water from the at-risk Murrumbidgee Deep Groundwater Source. The offence occurred during a period of drought between July 2017 and June 2020.
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The owner of the property, which grows grapes, cotton, wheat, canola, barley and corn southwest of Griffith pleaded guilty to five charges in the NSW Land and Environment Court. They were also ordered to pay $60,000 in costs.
The prosecution was brought by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) and involved the over-extraction of 7,352.97 ML of water from various bores: the equivalent of 2,953 Olympic swimming pools.
Four of the charges were concerned with breaches of bore extraction limits and one charge of taking water not in accordance with an access licence allocation. The court heard that, at the time, the water taken had a market value of $1.1 million dollars.
NRAR Director Investigation and Enforcement, Lisa Stockley, said the case highlighted the risk posed to fragile underground water resources when water laws were not followed.
Groundwater levels at the time of the offence almost reached the historical lows that were observed during 2007 to 2009 at the end of the worst drought on record in southeast Australia.
"This aquifer is considered to be "at-risk" from high water demand, and that means all water users taking licensed water from the groundwater source must have a meter, regardless of infrastructure size," Ms Stockley said.
Ms Stockley claims water users were sometimes more aware of how NRAR managed surface water because rivers and other waterways were more visible.
"Groundwater is the unseen water source. People don't realise what damage can be done. If groundwater is taken faster than it is being replaced or 'recharged' it can lead to long-term problems for the communities, enterprises, and ecosystems that rely on this water.
"These systems can be ancient and depending on the recharge rate, any damage may take years to recover."
In handing down her decision Her Honour, Justice Pepper said that the offending posed a "real risk of environmental harm" and that it was up to licence holders to know their licence conditions and follow them.
"At all times the onus is on account or WAL [water access licence] holders to adhere to the conditions of their WAL or account. It is not incumbent upon a regulator to inform the account or licence holder of any actual or potential breach," Justice Pepper said.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, the owner of a mixed cropping enterprise near Griffith has been ordered to pay a fine of $26,250 for breaching a bore extraction limit. They were also ordered to pay $20,000 in costs.
The irrigator pleaded guilty to a single charge of breaching the conditions of his licence approval to over-extract 97.5 megalitres of water from a bore during a period of drought in 2019-20.
The prosecution was brought by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) in the NSW Land and Environment Court.
While the court accepted that the defendant's breach was inadvertent, it found that the over-extraction had an effect on the groundwater pressure in the aquifer and would have resulted in additional costs for neighbouring water users if they pumped water during the period of offending,
In handing down her decision, Her Honour, Justice Sarah Prichard SC said she found "beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant's over-extraction posed an increased risk of harm to the environment".
"I treat that increased risk of harm seriously and consider it to undermine the regulatory scheme of the Water Management Act," Justice Prichard said.
