On Wednesday 13th March 2024, just days before the matter was due to be heard in the Land & Environment Court, the Nature Conservation Council NSW settled by agreement their water and climate change court case against NSW Minister for Water Rose Jackson and Minister for Climate Change and Environment Penny Sharpe.
The world-first legal action to protect rivers and wetlands had been brought against then Water Minister Melinda Pavey and Environment Minister Matt Kean in October 2021, and sought to ensure future climate change projections would be considered when decisions about water sharing plans are being made.
This has been the first time in the world a catchment-wide water sharing instrument has been challenged on the grounds that it fails to address the future impacts of climate change.
As a result of the settlement agreement, the NSW Government has made the following commitments:
There will be a review of the way limits to water extraction are calculated.
The review will consider the ecological needs of the rivers and wetlands, and the expected future impact of climate change on each catchment. The commitment is that this work will be done in time for the start of the next phase of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2027/28.
The way water is allocated will be reviewed.
By June 2026, the government will have finished reviewing how water is allocated from public dams. The review will ensure that all inflow data and projected climate change impacts have been appropriately considered when water allocations are made.
The review will also consider how much water should be set aside in public dams for the environment and people in dry times.
Since 2015, the rules have stated that only data from last century can be used to work out water allocations, a crazy rule that allowed dams to empty at blistering speed, spelling disaster across NSW in the 2019 drought.
Independent reviews.
Importantly, all the processes, methodology and work plans committed to by the Ministers will be independently assessed by the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer and the Natural Resources Commission.
These commitments represent a pathway to significant, generational improvements in water management in NSW.
Extraction limits are currently worked out based on how much water has been taken from rivers and aquifers in the past, not how much water can be taken before the environment suffers. A review of extraction limits as described above will consider how much water must stay in rivers and aquifers to ensure there is a healthy water supply for nature and people.
Since 2015, water allocations have been worked out based on how much water flowed into dams last century, ignoring the most severe droughts that have occurred in recent years. Making decisions on water allocations this way results in too much water being given to irrigators and too little being left for the environment and communities. Dams are being emptied too fast, dangerously depleting vital drought reserves.
NCC will work closely with the NSW government to ensure these commitments are fully realised.
Learn more about what the settlement of this case out of court means by watching our webinar:
Media:
Read NCC's Media Release (14/3/24)
Read the NSW Government's Media Release (14/3/24)
Read the media release from the Environmental Defenders Office (6/10/21)
Read the Guardian story about the court case (6/10/21)
Watch this video as a reminder of why we felt it necessary to bring these world-first proceedings back in 2021