Antunes Group given 28 days to agree to stop illegally taking groundwater or face harsh action
A developer who has illegally flushed millions of litres of groundwater out to sea for years has been hit with a demand from the State Government to stop – or end up in court.
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A developer has been hit with a legal threat from the State Government after illegally taking groundwater at Henley Beach for years.
The Department for Environment and Water has told the Antunes Group – owned by Richard Antunes – that is has 28 days to sign an agreement to stop illegally taking water from an aquifer underneath its Baju Apartments development.
The groundwater was displaced during the construction of his apartment and retail complex years ago, with the basement sitting below the water table.
Antunes’ solution at the time was to send the water to existing stormwater holding tanks under the Seaview Rd carpark, which flows on to the beach north of the jetty.
Hundreds of millions of litres of groundwater have since been flushed out to sea.
SA Water two weeks ago closed a section of the beach where the water drains over fears a sewer leak had contaminated the run-off with human effluent.
The closure was made at the request of SA Health but the two turned out to be unrelated.
The department confirmed it had been working with Charles Sturt Council to make Antunes Group remedy the illegal water use for years without any luck.
It agreed to draw up a design for the water to be collected and returned to the aquifer, which has been approved by both the government and the council.
Silence from the Antunes Group has prevented them reaching an agreement with the Commissioner of Highways to use a road reserve to direct the groundwater back into the aquifer.
Department water licensing general manager Mike Fuller said there were “long-term risks” to the aquifer if nothing was done soon.
“Unfortunately the department’s negotiations with both the developer and community corporations, in trying to achieve an agreed deed has broken down with the developer becoming non-responsive,” Mr Fuller said.
“We’ve now written to the developer and the community corporations to give them 28 days to finalise the deed and take all necessary steps to enable the construction of the groundwater inception scheme to begin.”
If the community corporations do not reach an agreement in that time, the department will compel them to gain approval by June 1.
Failure of that would lead the case to the Environment, Resources and Development Court.
The Antunes Group has been contacted for comment.