NRAR returns to Maitland and Casino area properties to check progress on water rule breaches

Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) outreach officers will return to the Maitland and Casino areas in June to see if local landholders have addressed water law breaches on their properties.

Since 2022, outreach officers have visited thousands of properties in the two regions, which revealed concerning numbers of incidents where landholders had breached the rules in some way.

• Around Maitland, officers visited 1513 properties to offer advice and guidance about compliance. They found almost a third of landholders had breached the rules.
• Around Casino, they visited 782 properties and found more than 22 per cent of landholders had breached the rules.

NRAR Director of Education and Engagement Keeley Reynolds said officers would now return to properties to see what steps landholders had taken to meet their obligations.

“At our first visit, if there were issues, we discussed those with the landholder and offered help to address them. Now we hope to see positive change,” Ms Reynolds said.

“By far the most common problem we found in both regions was failing to keep accurate records of water use, but having oversized water works or metering issues were also detected regularly,” Ms Reynolds said.

“Of the 443 breaches we saw around Maitland, 390 were related to recording water take. At Casino, we saw 176 breaches and 152 of those were related to the same issue. So, that’s a very significant problem,” she said.

“The effective management of water in NSW depends on accurately and consistently measuring water use – and keeping accurate records is fundamental to that.

“Some of the breaches we are talking about might seem minor, but all breaches of NSW water laws are important, and collectively, they can add up to a large widespread problem."

Ms Reynolds said that if landholders were not yet compliant, outreach officers would try to find out why and help them if possible.

"However, continued failure to comply with the water rules could lead to enforcement action, which can range from fines to approval suspensions and even prosecution for the most high-risk, significant cases," Ms Reynolds said.

The Maitland region falls into the Hunter Water Sharing Plan area which is bordered in the north-west by the Liverpool Ranges which separate it from the Namoi catchment, and on the west by the Great Dividing Range, which separates it from the Macquarie River catchment.

It covers an area over 20,000km2 and extends further inland than any other coastal region of NSW.

The Casino area falls into the Far North Coast Water Sharing Plan area which stretches from north of Coffs Harbour to the Queensland border, covering an area of 10,000km2 including over 280km of coastline of NSW.

NRAR's Outreach program sees the regulator visit thousands of licence holders on their properties each year to hear directly from them about their water management practices. While they’re there, NRAR officers help them understand their obligations.

Find out more about NRAR’s education and engagement activities.