New South Wales Consolidated Acts

WATER MANAGEMENT ACT 2000 - SECT 8

8 Environmental water

(1) For the purposes of this Act,
"environmental water" comprises the following--

(a) water that is committed by management plans for fundamental ecosystem health or other specified environmental purposes, either generally or at specified times or in specified circumstances, and that cannot to the extent committed be taken or used for any other purpose (
"planned environmental water" ),

(b) water (
"licensed environmental water" ) that is--

(i) committed by an adaptive environmental water condition under section 8B, 8C, 8D or 63B, or

(ii) taken or permitted to be taken under a licence of an environmental subcategory, or

(iii) taken or permitted to be taken under a licence of a class prescribed by the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph.

(1A) A management plan is to commit water as planned environmental water in at least 2 of the following ways (whether by 2 separate ways or a combination of 2 ways)--

(a) by reference to the commitment of the physical presence of water in the water source,

(b) by reference to the long-term average annual commitment of water as planned environmental water,

(c) by reference to the water that is not committed after the commitments to basic landholder rights and for sharing and extraction under any other rights have been met.

(2) A management plan must contain provisions for the identification, establishment and maintenance of planned environmental water (
"environmental water rules" ). The environmental water rules relating to a water source do not need to specify that a minimum quantity of water is required to be present in the water source at all times.

(3) Environmental water rules are to be established for all of the water sources in the State as soon as practicable after the commencement of this section.