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Lachlan Surface Water Resource Plan

Commonwealth accreditation - submitted

The Lachlan Surface Water Resource Plan (WRP) has now been submitted to the Murray–Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to assess the plan against accreditation requirements of the Basin Plan 2012. A copy of the submitted Plan and the schedules and appendices is available on the MDBA website. Changes made to the draft plan based on feedback from public consultation and the MDBA’s preliminary advice is provided in the summary of changes (PDF 403.6 KB) fact sheet.

Water sharing plans continue to be the legal instrument for managing water resources in NSW. Water resource plans are put in place to implement the Commonwealth Basin Plan 2012.

What areas does the plan cover?

The Lachlan Surface Water Resource Plan covers all the surface water resources of the Lachlan River Valley. It includes the regulated river system; unregulated rivers flowing into the regulated river system; unregulated effluent rivers flowing out of the regulated river system onto the plains; and water captured through farm dams and floodplain water harvesting. Lachlan Regulated River Water Source includes all water occurring between the banks of the rivers, from Wyangala Dam water storage downstream to the junction of the Lachlan River with the Murrumbidgee River, that have been declared by the Minister to be regulated.The Belubula Regulated River Water Source includes all water occurring between the banks of all rivers, from the Carcoar Dam water storage, downstream to the junction with the Lachlan River. The Lachlan Unregulated Water Sources include the unregulated tributaries within the Lachlan Water Management Area.

Public exhibition - closed

The draft Water Resource Plan, and proposed changes to the existing Water Sharing Plan, were on public exhibition from 9 November 2018 to 1 February 2019. All submissions received during this period have been reviewed by the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment.

The following respondents agreed to have their submissions published on this website. Note that not all respondents elected to have their submissions published.

The views expressed in the submissions are the views of the respondents. While the department seeks to ensure that offensive material is not published, the department is not responsible for the views expressed in the submissions.

The public exhibition period provided valuable feedback that helped develop and inform proposed changes to the Water Sharing Plans and Water Resource Plan.

Water Sharing Plans

The progress of changes to the water sharing plans as part of the water resource plan development can be found below.

30 June 2020

The changes between the draft (March 2020) and current draft (30 June 2020) for the Lachlan regulated remade plan pending commencement and the Lachlan unregulated and Belubula regulated plans, can be seen in the track-changes document below (some changes may not be immediately visible due to template updates).

A report titled 'What we heard (PDF 2.0 MB)' has been prepared post the consultation across the NSW Murray-Darling Basin to capture key areas of feedback and provide transparency around how the issues that were raised are being addressed. It also outlines further plans and processes for addressing water sharing and management issues going forward.

March 2020

A further targeted session with the stakeholder advisory panel (SAP) that was held in April 2020, provided additional input into the water sharing plans.

Public exhibition (November 2018 - February 2019)

If you require assistance in reading these documents, please contact +61 2 9338 6600 or water.relations@dpie.nsw.gov.au.

Public information sessions

Public information sessions were held at the following locations.

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