NSW water officials knew decades of unmeasured floodplain harvesting by irrigators was illegal
Written by Kerry Brewster
Senior group meeting in January discussed the legal implications of practice that critics blame for preventing water flowing further down the Murray-Darling system
New South Wales water officials have acknowledged that decades of unregulated and unmeasured floodplain harvesting by irrigators was illegal, the minutes of recent meetings show.
At a January meeting, a week before the first drenching rains in northern NSW, members of a senior government water group discussed the legal implications of irrigators harvesting floodwaters, a widespread but unregulated method that accounts for up to a third of the water used by operators in the northern part of the Murray-Darling Basin.
Related: Questions raised over decision to let cotton farms harvest first rainfall in years
For 20 years the NSW government allowed their northern basin mates to build whatever they wanted to catch water off the floodplains, but it was never legal
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