2017-2018 Water sharing plan reviews

Summary

We completed our review of the following water sharing plans.

• Water Sharing Plan for the NSW Border Rivers Regulated River Water Source 2009
• Water Sharing Plan for the Bellinger River Area Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources 2008
• Water Sharing Plan for the NSW Great Artesian Basin Groundwater Sources 2008.

We recommended that all the water sharing plans be replaced taking into consideration recommendations from our review.

We also suggested merging the Great Artesian Basin plan with the Water Sharing Plan for the NSW Great Artesian Basin Shallow Groundwater Sources 2011. This is in line with advanced understanding of hydraulic connectivity between groundwater sources.

The Minister upported our recommendations to replace the Border Rivers plan, and extended the Bellinger River and Great Artesian Basin plans for two years to allow time to make new plans and taking into consideration the recent Government policy changes.

Our reviews were informed by 19 submissions, including two that were confidential.

Key documents

NSW Border Rivers

• NSW Border Rivers - Final report (May 2018)
• NSW Border Rivers - Government response (July 2018)

Bellinger River

• Bellinger River - Final report (June 2018)
• Bellinger River - Government response (July 2018)

Great Artisian Basin

• Great Artesian Basin - Final report (June 2018)