The Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) has found 84 per cent of Local Water Utilities (LWU) in the Sydney, Hunter and Northern Rivers regions are compliant with NSW water laws.
Between June and November 2020, NRAR visited 24 LWUs across 117 sites to assess compliance with NSW water laws for town water supply.
Graeme White, Director Regional Water Regulation Operations (East) said the results are encouraging and are testament to the ongoing work his team are doing on the ground.
“We are pleased to see such high levels of voluntary compliance with our water laws among water utilities that supply safe and sustainable drinking water to their communities,” he said.
“The results reflect the hard work NRAR has done to support public and private sectors in ensuring our water supply is shared equally and fairly. It also reflects how important water compliance is to our local governments.”
The campaign found all local water utilities were using meters and logbooks to record water take.
While high levels of compliance were observed, NRAR’s investigation identified that more work could be done to improve the water reporting system for LWUs.
“We found 14 per cent of those inspected required administrative changes to bring operations into compliance, with a further two per cent under investigation for alleged over extraction,” said Mr White.
“We will work with local water utilities in the coming months to develop an appropriate reporting mechanism to increase awareness in the sector.”
To see the work NRAR does, go to its public register on the NRAR website industry.nsw.gov.au/nrar. Go to ‘Reports and data’, then ‘NRAR Public Register’.
