“No disincentive”: Murray River landholder fined $2250 for stealing $50,000 of water

A Wentworth landholder has been fined $2250 and ordered to pay for $50,000 worth of stolen water – the equivalent of 175 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Wentworth-based landholder has been fined for taking water above their licence limit from the Murray and Darling Rivers.

A water user in south west NSW has been fined $2250 after they “misunderstood their limit” and stole 175 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water over 14 months.

The Wentworth-based landholder used a total of 437.3ML more than their licence allowed at a value of over $52,000, according to the Natural Resources Access Regulator.

NRAR’s Water Enforcement Taskforce director Kirsty Ruddock said each case was assessed “on its own merits” and in this instance, “the landholder had misunderstood their limit so we decided against imposing a higher penalty”, she said.

In addition to the $2250 fine, the landholder paid for the water they took at the market rate, Ms Ruddock said.

Former Wentworth councillor and current Wentworth council nominee Jane MacAllister said the low value of the fine was “a disgrace” and was “no disincentive” to people taking water over their licenced limit in future.

“If you don't read the conditions of your water licence you shouldn't have one,” she said.

“(People who steal water are) ripping everyone off,” she said, and small fines “do nothing to restore the faith of the community.”

As of July 2021, water from the NSW Murray Regulated River water source was valued at $130 per ML.

Under Section 60G of the Water Management Act, NRAR can charge a water user up to five times the price of water if it is taken unlawfully.

This means the landholder could have faced a “hefty bill” of between $52,000 and $260,000, Ms Ruddock said.

The breach was discovered during an NRAR audit, and Ms Ruddock said the fine sent a “clear message” that “it’s an offence to go into debit on your water accounts at any time and all water users need to know the rules so that they can play by them”.

The landholder was one of six water users on the NSW side of the lower Murray fined for taking water outside their water licence.

The Natural Resources Access Regulator’s newly released quarterly report shows the Wentworth local government area had the second-highest number of penalty infringement notices in NSW, only surpassed by Coffs Harbour.

In the July to September quarter, NRAR inspected a total of 606 properties in NSW bringing its total number of inspections in the first nine months of this year to 3761.

During the July to September period there were 152 enforcement actions across NSW, bringing the yearly total to 380.

Originally published as “No disincentive”: Murray River landholder fined $2250 for stealing $50,000 of water