Have Your Say on the new draft Georgina Wiso Water Allocation Plan
The Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security is commencing public consultation on the draft Georgina Wiso Water Allocation Plan 2022-2030 within the Daly Beetaloo Water Control District.
The Georgina Wiso plan applies to an area of approximately 155,000 square kilometres extending about 600 km from north to south, and 500 km east to west. The plan area includes the towns of Daly Waters, Elliott and Newcastle Waters and smaller communities of Jangirulu, Likkaparta, Marlinja, Murranji and Wutunugurra. This draft plan is the first plan for the Georgina Basin and Wiso Basin.
Water allocation plans are established under the Northern Territory’s Water Act and provide the basis for preserving water for environmental and cultural uses and for allocating water for public drinking water supplies and for development in a region.
Once declared, the plan will be in effect for eight years, and will be reviewed after four years.
It has been developed to meet recommendation 7.7 of the Final Report of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory to effectively manage water resources with the potential impact and risks associated with hydraulic fracturing of onshore unconventional shale gas reservoirs on water resources.
The draft plan has been developed with reference to scientific studies, and more recent water monitoring and assessment through the Strategic Regional and Environmental Baseline Assessment (SREBA) for the Beetaloo Sub-basin.
The draft plan has been presented Beetaloo Regional Reference Group, which is a consultative forum for communication with key regional stakeholders based in the Beetaloo area for guiding and informing the SREBA studies. It will operate in conjunction with water licences and permits and prioritises water for non-consumptive uses first, retaining the majority of water in the environment to maintain important ecological functions and for cultural purposes.
The plan establishes the proportion of water from the water resource that can be sustainably allocated for drinking water, a range of commercial uses and to reserve water for Aboriginal economic development. This plan area has an extensive regional aquifer with very large stored volumes of water is continuing to increase and the current utilisation of the resource is low.
Water allocation is the process of determining how much water is available in the water resource to share, the estimated sustainable yield. The method we have used to determine the estimated sustainable yield in the plan area is based on 40% of recharge only, ensuring water can be sustainably extracted without adverse impacts on other users and the environment.
The estimated sustainable yield in the draft plan is 262,560 megalitres (ML) per year with 21,000 ML per year allocated to stock and domestic water use and the allocation to petroleum activity capped at 10,000 ML per year. Furthermore the plan allocates 24,094 ML per year to the Aboriginal water reserve for Aboriginal economic benefit and may be traded.
Throughout the life of the plan the department will work with the Central and Northern Land Council and Traditional Owners by establishing an Aboriginal Reference Group. This group will ensure that Aboriginal cultural values and knowledge are understood, key groundwater dependent sites are defined, and specific cultural protections are developed for future inclusion in the plan.
Consultation is open until Sunday 18 December 2022. Find out more about the plan and have your say by visiting: https://haveyoursay.nt.gov.au/water-management
