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Water Law

The Department of Water and Energy is responsible for managing access to water and ensuring water is shared between the environment, towns and cities, and farmers and industry as well as for Aboriginal cultural activities.

Whether or not you need a licence (or other approval) from the Department to access surface water (water from rivers, lakes etc) for your rural property depends on how and why you want to use the water. However to access groundwater for any purpose requires a licence or approval from the Department.

Rural landholders have rights to access water for some basic purposes such as domestic and stock water, harvestable rights from farm dams and native title rights.

If you want to extract water from rivers or aquifers and use it for commercial purposes, you will generally require a licence and/or other approval from the Department. In addition, to carry out works in, on or under waterfront land a controlled activity approval is required.

The NSW Government is developing a floodplain harvesting policy and licensing framework.

For water licences and associated water trading (the buying and selling of water licences or annual allocation water), NSW is currently operating under two pieces of legislation. If you are in an area where a water sharing plan has commenced, your licence comes under the Water Management Act 2000, if not the licensing provisions of the Water Act 1912 still apply.

The Law Company can help you with your water law needs. We offer advice on:

• Compliance with water laws and regulations.
• Buying and selling water licences
• Water industry reforms and policy changes.
• Water pricing and trading.

Call The Law Company on 1800 NSW LAW.

For more information or if you have a question on Water Law please contact us via our enquiry form.

The information provided here should not be acted upon without first consulting with the professionals at The Law Company who are experienced in this field and will then have an opportunity of understanding of your particular circumstances.