A vineyard operator has been accused of illegally pumping “5,200 Olympic swimming pools” worth of water from the Darling River in south western New South Wales over a four-year period.
On Monday, the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) said it had begun a “significant” prosecution in the NSW Land and Environment Court against the Lower Murray vineyard operator.
The NRAR will allege the former owner of a vineyard, near Wentworth, bypassed water meters and pumped up to 13,000 megalitres of water beyond their water licence allocation.
The water was allegedly taken illegally from the Darling River between 2011 and 2015 – shortly after the millennium drought – when the Murray-Darling Basin and the majority of southern NSW cropping zones were still severely affected by dry conditions.
The director of investigations and enforcement at the NRAR, Lisa Stockley, said the allegations were extremely serious, even though conditions in the area had since moved from severe drought to flooding in some locations.
“Periods of abundant rainfall have a way of taking attention away from the overall reality of finite water resources,” she said.
“When people irrigate unlawfully, they’re not just risking heavy penalties. Illegal water take can also cause significant harm to the environment and their own community.”
It’s not the first time a Wentworth vineyard owner has been prosecuted for water theft.
In 2019, in an unrelated case, an owner pleaded guilty to eight charges of taking water from a watercourse without an allocation between April 2016 and March 2019.
In the three months from July to September 2022, the NRAR conducted 1,013 property inspections and 298 investigations, with six active prosecutions in court.
Quarterly reporting data from that period revealed illegal water take and water meter breaches remain the most common offence dealt with by the NRAR, making up 48% of all offences.
When the NRAR decide what to investigate, Stockley said they consider two main questions: “Does the evidence show there is a high risk that water rules are being broken? How much harm will be caused by that rule breaking?
“Since irrigated agriculture often includes the largest water users within a particular region, the regulator has made this a priority area for compliance and monitoring activities,” she said.
The case will be heard in the NSW Land and Environment Court on 9 December.
