Cotton grower Henry Payson Pty Ltd fined $350,000 fine for water offences

A NSW cotton grower has been found guilty of taking water without approval and attempting to hide the theft.

A NSW cotton farm has been slapped with the largest fine ever handed down by the state’s environment court for water offences.

On Tuesday, the NSW Land and Environment Court found Henry Payson Pty Ltd guilty of four water offences dating back to 2016 and fined the company a total of $353,750 plus costs of $2374.

The company, run by director George Barne, grows cotton on the Gwydir River, 38km east of Moree on a 1500ha property called Binneguy Station.

Payson was convicted of knowingly taking water from the Gwydir River when its metering equipment was under-recording, and building and using a dam to store water without approval.

The court found the offending was more serious than other water offences it had made judgments on in the past. It found the company director was not only aware of taking more water than he had paid for; he also attempted to hide the theft.

Evidence given to the court by a company employee showed director George Barne instructed him to prepare 250ha for irrigated cotton during the 2017-18 season — more than double what the company’s water budget would allow — with Mr Barne saying he would “buy water and get two for the price of one”, a reference to a faulty water meter.

Cotton was worth more than $500 per bale in the 2017-18 season when Henry Payson Pty Ltd took hundreds of megalitres of water it didn’t pay for.

The employee was then instructed by Mr Barne to fabricate a false water budget to account for the water meter reading only 50 per cent of the water it took, he told the court.

Payson grew a profitable crop of 250ha of irrigated cotton that season, when cotton prices averaged a historically high price of $529/bale.

The court found that the offences were motivated in part by profit, but Barne’s decision-making capacity was also impaired by mental health issues, including isolation and challenging family relationships — a factor that reduced the total fine imposed.

The four offences carried a potential maximum penalty of more than $6 million.

Adelaide University Adjunct Professor of Natural Resource Science Dr Wayne Meyer used weekly satellite images to calculate Binneguy Station required 1268ML during the 2016-17 cotton season to sustain its cotton crop and 2012ML to sustain the 2017-18 cotton crop.

Payson’s meter recorded taking less than half that amount: 485.28ML in 2016-17 and 847.35ML during 2017-18.

The total fine was higher than previous penalties imposed by the court, which included a fine of more than $250,000 to Lane Cove-based company Bao Lin Pty Ltd in 2022 for a series of offences including building an illegal dam on a NSW property, and $252,000 to northern NSW cotton farm run by Budvalt Pty Ltd for illegally building a channel to convey water.

Last year, dairy company Leppington Pastoral Co Pty Ltd, owned by the billionaire Perich family, agreed to pay a record $425,000 in an enforceable undertaking for illegally building dams and pumps on a property in southwest Sydney. The matter was settled before it reached the Land and Environment Court.