A group of 18 water experts from universities across the country has written to the Northern Territory Chief Minister to express concern about the region's "poor" water regulations and to urge a halt in new extraction licences.
The joint letter was penned after the NT government last week released a draft water allocation plan for the Georgina Wiso Basin — which covers an area twice the size of Tasmania, from Daly Waters in the north to beyond Tennant Creek in the south.
According to the draft plan, up to 262 gigalitres of water — the equivalent of more than 100,000 Olympic swimming pools — could be taken sustainably from the basin each year.
About three-quarters would go towards industries, including agriculture and mining, with 10 gigalitres set aside for petroleum activities, such as fracking in the gas-rich Beetaloo region.
The government said the allocation accounts for about 40 per cent of the basin's annual "recharge", which is when groundwater is topped up by rainfall.
But the academics — who specialise in several disciplines including hydrology, ecology and water governance — have described the draft plan as "particularly poor and regressive".
In the letter, they say the plan:
- breaches water planning guidelines of the National Water Initiative
- puts at risk significant environmental and Indigenous values
- was prepared without input from a water advisory committee
Government says plan strikes 'right balance'
When the draft plan was released, the government said it had been developed with reference to scientific studies, as well as recent water monitoring undertaken as part of a Strategic Regional and Environmental Baseline Assessment (SREBA).
It also said 24 gigalitres per year would be set aside for Indigenous economic benefit and that they would work with traditional owners by establishing an Aboriginal reference group.
"We've identified this level of sustainable extraction as the right balance between those competing uses," the executive director of water resources Amy Dysart told the ABC's Country Hour last week.
"[It ensures] the majority of the water is primarily retained in the resource for ecological [uses] and supporting cultural uses, and some of the water is also available for supporting development in that region."
But one of the signatories of the letter, Professor Matthew Currell from RMIT University, questioned the process.
Professor Currell, who is engaged by the Environment Centre NT to research groundwater sustainability in the territory, said the SREBA was not yet complete.
"So we've got some really big knowledge gaps about how the groundwater actually leaves that aquifer system currently," he told the ABC.
"Does it support things like springs? How much do subterranean fauna like stygofauna depend upon that groundwater?
"We still have some fairly big uncertainty around how much rainfall actually replenishes that aquifer each year."
In their letter, the academics were also critical of what they described as the "unacceptably slow" rollout of other water allocation plans, which they said were active in about 5 per cent of the territory.
They also said default allocation rules — which are used where no water allocation plans are in place and allow up to 20 per cent of groundwater flows to be used by industries — "entrenches poor practice".
Water planning in NT 'way out of kilter'
Another signatory, Emeritus Professor Barry Hart from Monash University, was a panellist on the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in 2018.
"We are urging … the Northern Territory Government … to really upgrade their current water planning and regulation processes — they are way out of kilter," Professor Hart said.
Professor Sue Jackson from Griffith University, who also signed the letter, said the group's recommendations included the suspension of new water extraction licences until comprehensive data has been gathered.
"We're most concerned that the Northern Territory is putting at risk very important ecological and cultural values in the way in which it's regulating and licensing water," Professor Jackson said.
A spokeswoman for Chief Minister Natasha Fyles said the government had delivered "significant reforms" to the allocation and use of water in the territory.
"We are also developing a comprehensive, long-term Strategic Water Plan which will look at sustainable water for all our regions," she said.
The draft plan for the Georgina Wiso basin is open for public consultation until December 18.
Once finalised, it will remain in place until 2030, with a review after four years.
