New South Wales Consolidated Acts

WATER MANAGEMENT ACT 2000 - SECT 53

53 Harvestable rights

(1) An owner or occupier of a landholding within a harvestable rights area is entitled, without the need for any access licence, water supply work approval or water use approval, to do each of the following in accordance with the harvestable rights order by which the area is constituted--

(a) to construct and use one or more water supply works for the purpose of capturing and storing water of a kind specified by the harvestable rights order,

(b) to take and use that water.

(2) One or more water supply works may be constructed and used under subsection (1) (a) for the storage of both water that has been captured in exercise of a harvestable right and other water that has been lawfully taken from a water source if the capacity of the work or works does not exceed the maximum harvestable right volume specified by the harvestable rights order.

(3) The following provisions apply where the capacity of the water supply work or works by means of which water is to be captured or stored in exercise of a harvestable right exceeds the maximum harvestable right volume specified by the harvestable rights order for works constructed under the authority of this section--

(a) an access licence or water use approval is not required for water that is captured or stored by the work or works in exercise of a harvestable right,

(b) if water (other than water captured or stored in exercise of a harvestable right) is also captured or stored by the work or works--an access licence and water use approval is required to authorise the taking and use of water from that source for any volume taken and stored in excess of the maximum harvestable right volume unless the water is taken under the authority of a domestic and stock right or native title right,

(c) a water supply work approval for the water supply work or works is required despite subsection (1).

(4) Without limiting subsection (1), a single water supply work may be used by 2 or more landholders regardless of who constructed it if the shared use is permitted by the harvestable rights order.

(5) This section does not allow a landholder--

(a) to supply any other land with water that has been captured and stored in exercise of a harvestable right, or

(b) to construct or use a water supply work in a river unless the river is declared by the relevant harvestable rights order to be a minor stream for the purposes of this Division.

(6) In this section--

"capture" , in relation to a water supply work, includes pumping water for the purposes of storage in another water supply work.