Autumn-winter compliance data shows increase in enforcement actions for water law breaches

Water law compliance data for the autumnwinter period has shown a 57% increase in total enforcement actions taken by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) compared to the same period in 2023.

There were 227 enforcement actions taken between March and August in 2024, compared to 145 in the same period last year, including fnes, stop work orders and offcial warnings and cautions.

The main factor in the increase was a rise in the number of directions issued to water licence holders. Many of these were linked to water users who needed to replace broken water meters. Directions and orders were issued to ensure water-use limits were followed until replacement was completed.

Warnings and cautions issued by the regulator for breaches increased by 20% to 95 over 2023 levels, while the number of fnes (penalty notices) fell by 19% to 34.

NRAR received 1186 suspicious activity reports in the autumnwinter period of 2024, and 319 of these have been referred for further investigation.

Of the state’s 14 water sharing plan regions, the Macquarie Castlereagh region recorded the highest number of enforcement actions for the six months, with

31. This included 5 fnes, 19 directions and 7 warnings or cautions.

This total is an increase of more than 500% on the same period in 2023.

The Lachlan water sharing plan area was next highest with 28 enforcement actions from March to August this year, followed by the Namoi region on 25.

NRAR Director of Investigations and Enforcement Lisa Stockley, said releasing compliance data was an important part of NRAR’s commitment to transparency about its activities and results.

“A variety of compliance data is publicly available on our website, and this gives confdence to the public that water is being managed effectively and action will be taken when rules are broken,”

Ms Stockley said.

“When we decide how to respond to breaches of the law, we focus our efforts and resources on those that pose the greatest risk of harm to communities, the environment or other water users,” she said.

“A lot of people are already doing the right thing, and we are encouraged by that.

“The number of breaches is small compared to the 39,000 licences monitored by NRAR, but that said, even small breaches matter because together they can add up to a serious widespread problem.”

See more compliance data for your area on our online dashboard.

Examples of enforcement actions from this period

Case study Forbes region

The offences: A Forbes region property owner was found to have allegedly overdrawn their water account by more than 124 ML. This equates to about 50 Olympic swimming pools worth of water above what they were allowed to take under the terms of their licence. During

NRAR’s investigation of this matter, it was also discovered that the property owner did not have compliant metering on the pumps used to extract the water.

Our response: To determine whether further action was needed, NRAR issued a notice to the water licence holder to provide information and records about the over-extraction and what steps they had taken to install the correct metering equipment. In the landholders’ response to the notice, they provided proof they had engaged a qualifed installer and paid a deposit to have the required metering installed.

The result: The landholder paid a fne for overdrawing their water account, and now has compliant metering on their pumps. This means that future water use can be accurately measured and accounted for.

Case study Dubbo region

The offence: A Dubbo region landholder was found to have allegedly breached the terms and conditions of their combined approval to pump and use water. In this case, it was found that excess water from an irrigated crop was being discharged directly into the Macquarie River via a pipe through the riverbank.

This “tail water” can potentially contain fertilisers or other farm chemicals that can damage the river ecosystem.

Our response: The landholder was issued with a direction to remove the discharge pipe.

The result: The pipe has been removed and the risk of polluting the waterway and damaging the river environment has been reduced.

TABLE: Compliance data for the fve NSW water sharing plan regions with the highest number of enforcement actions for autumn-winter period 2024.