Proposed amendments to Water Sharing Plan for the Macquarie Bogan Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources 2012 to facilitate active management - closed

Public exhibition of proposed amendments to water sharing rules to protect environmental water being used in-stream in the Lower Macquarie River and Marthaguy Creek water sources within the Macquarie Bogan unregulated water sharing plan area is now closed. All submissions are currently being reviewed by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment and will be considered when finalising the plan.

What changes have been proposed?

An increased level of management, called active management is proposed in the Lower Macquarie River and Marthaguy Creek water sources to manage environmental water used in-stream for environmental purposes, referred to as active environmental water.

Access rules will be changed to protect an equivalent volume of active environmental water from extraction as it moves through the unregulated water sources.

To implement active management change is required to water sharing rules that manage access to flows in the Water Sharing Plan for the Macquarie Bogan Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources 2012.

The proposed changes for active management are in addition to changes already exhibited in November 2018 – February 2019 during the exhibition of the Draft Macquarie-Castlereagh Surface Water Resource Plan. At that time, the approach to active management was still being developed.

The draft policy will guide the development of procedure manuals that will outline how active management is implemented.

• Proposed amendments to the Water Sharing Plan for the Macquarie Bogan Unregulated and Alluvial Water Sources to facilitate active management, September 2019
• Active Management in Unregulated Rivers – Draft policy for public consultation, September 2019

You can find out more about the proposed changes by reading the fact sheets below:

• Fact sheet – Macquarie Bogan unregulated water sharing plan - Active Management
• Fact sheet - Active management - Case study

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

Submissions closed

Submissions closed at 5pm on Tuesday 29 October 2019. All submissions are being reviewed by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment. A submission summary fact sheet along with individual submissions, where permitted, will be published on this site after this process is completed.

For more information email macquarie-castlereagh.sw.wrp@dpi.nsw.gov.au.

Public information sessions

The public information session was held at:

• Warren, 10 October 2019

Download the presentation from the public information session.

Frequently asked questions