Water Management Regulations 2019

Water Management Regulations 2019

18 June 2019

I, the Governor in and over the State of Tasmania and its Dependencies in the Commonwealth of Australia, acting with the advice of the Executive Council, make the following regulations under the Water Management Act 1999.

These regulations may be cited as the Water Management Regulations 2019.

These regulations take effect on 1 July 2019.

In these regulations, unless the contrary intention appears –

Act means the Water Management Act 1999;

ADITC means the Australian Drilling Industry Training Committee Limited;

ADQ means the average daily quantity of water, expressed in ML rounded to 3 decimal places, permitted to be taken under a licence;

approved course means – the Drilling Industry Certification and Training Course prepared and assessed by the ADITC; or any course regulating the competence of well drillers that is approved by the NUDLC;

Australian well driller's licence means a licence, permit, accreditation or other kind of authority that – has been issued or granted by an entity that monitors or regulates well drillers or their activities in another State or in a Territory; and is not suspended or otherwise subject to any taint or limitation on its validity or authority;

class 1 licence means a class 1 licence referred to in regulation 13;

class 2 licence means a class 2 licence referred to in regulation 13;

class 3 licence means a class 3 licence referred to in regulation 13;

employee includes a person engaged under a contract for services;

field management fee means a fee payable under – regulation 6 or 7; or section 123E(1)(b) of the Act;

national qualifications means – for a class 1 licence or a class 2 licence, a Certificate III in the field of study, or discipline, of well construction or bore construction that is recognised within the Australian Qualifications Framework; or for a class 3 licence, a Certificate IV in the field of study, or discipline, of well construction or bore construction that is recognised within the Australian Qualifications Framework;

NUDLC means the National Uniform Drillers Licensing Committee;

quarter means a period of 3 months commencing on the first day of January, April, July or October in any year;

region means a region referred to in regulation 7(2)(a).

For section 48(5) of the Act, the amount of water that can be taken by a person under section 48(2) and section 48(4A) of the Act is – for a domestic purpose – a maximum of 440L per day for each dwelling on the relevant land; or a maximum of 100L per day for each person who is an occupier of the land if there is no dwelling on the relevant land; or for irrigation of a household garden, a maximum of 0.6L per day for each square meter, but not exceeding 1 500L per day; or for watering cattle, a maximum of 90L per day for each head; or for watering horses, a maximum of 45L per day for each head; or for watering sheep, a maximum of 8.5L per day for each head; or for watering goats, a maximum of 8.5L per day for each head; or for watering pigs, a maximum of 20L per day for each head; or for watering chickens, a maximum of 3L per day for each 10 head; or for watering turkeys, 5.5L per day for each 10 head.

If an authorised officer is satisfied that water is to be taken into storage, he or she may permit a person to take a maximum of up to 7 times the amount of water specified in subregulation (1) in any period of 7 days.

A licensee is to pay an annual administrative fee of 71.1 fee units.

A licensee is to pay an annual field management fee in accordance with this regulation for a water allocation on a licence authorising the taking of water – into a dam constructed in or on a watercourse; and between 1 May and 30 November in any year (inclusive of both of those days).

Where – water is taken into a dam constructed in or on a watercourse; or there is more than one water allocation of a licence authorising the taking of water during the period referred to in subregulation (1) and at least one of the allocations is taken into a dam constructed in or on a watercourse – the licensee is to pay an annual field management fee in accordance with the following table:

Where water is, in any case other than the case referred to in subregulation (2), taken during the period referred to in subregulation (1), the licensee is to pay an annual field management fee in accordance with the following table:

Where there is more than one water allocation of a licence authorising the taking of water as mentioned in subregulation (1), only one annual field management fee is payable by the licensee and if the locations, for the taking of water in accordance with those water allocations, are not all situated in the one region referred to in the table, the fee payable is to be the fee that is the highest fee payable for a region in which one or more of those locations is situated.

For the purposes of this regulation, the annual field management fee that is payable, in accordance with a table to a subregulation in this regulation, for a water allocation on a licence authorising the taking of water is the amount, specified in the table, in relation to the region in which is situated the location, for the taking of water in accordance with the water allocation, that is identified on the licence to which the water allocation relates.

A licensee is to pay for a water allocation on a licence authorising the taking of water from a watercourse, except as mentioned elsewhere in this Part, an annual field management fee of the total of the various amounts payable in respect of each part of the relevant ADQ, as specified in the first column of Schedule 1 for the region in which is situated the location, for the taking of water, that is identified on the licence.

For the purposes of these regulations – the State is divided into 8 regions as delineated on Plan 5278 in the Central Plan Register, a reduced copy of which is set out, by way of illustration only, in Schedule 2; and each region is more particularly delineated on several plans in the Central Plan Register as is indicated for the regions on Plan 5278.

A licensee is to pay an annual field management fee of 66 fee units for a water allocation on a licence authorising the taking of water from groundwater.

If a licence has more than one water allocation, the fee payable under regulation 7 is whichever amount is the lesser of the following:the total of the annual field management fees payable for each allocation; the fee applicable to the total amount of water as if it were all a single allocation.

If a licence has a water allocation as mentioned in regulation 6(2) and a water allocation as mentioned in regulation 7, the annual field management fee is one-half of the amount payable under regulation 6(2) together with the amount payable under regulation 7.

If a licence has a water allocation authorising the taking of water – only during the period between 1 May and 30 November in any year (inclusive of both of those days); and except as mentioned in this Part – the annual field management fee is the total amount payable under regulations 6(2) and 7.

A licensee is to pay an annual fee of 247.5 fee units for a water allocation on a licence authorising the taking of water from a watercourse –

for aquaculture; or for hydro-electricity generation; or for any similar purpose where the water is returned to the watercourse directly after use without significant diminution of the quantity of water taken.

Each financial year, the Corporation is to pay the Minister a fee for a water allocation on a licence transferred to it by a Regional Corporation that was transferred to that Regional Corporation by a bulk water authority.

The amount of the fee is the lesser of the following amounts:the product of 26.38 fee units and the number of megalitres of water that the Corporation takes under the water allocation to supply to its customers during the relevant financial year (excluding any water that the Minister accepts is intended for irrigation); the prescribed maximum.

In this regulation – bulk water authority means Hobart Water (ABN 95 327 914 139), Esk Water (ABN 41 913 557 456) and Cradle Coast Water (ABN 44 792 170 681);Corporation has the same meaning as in the Water and Sewerage Corporation Act 2012;CPI figure for Hobart means the Consumer Price Index: All Groups Index Number for Hobart published by the Australian Statistician under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905 of the Commonwealth; prescribed maximum means – for the financial year ending on 30 June 2019 – $2 672 200.00; and for the financial year ending on 30 June 2020 – $2 672 200.00 indexed in accordance with the average CPI figure for Hobart for the 4 quarters ending on 31 December 2019; and for a subsequent financial year, the prescribed maximum for the financial year ending on 30 June immediately preceding that subsequent financial year, indexed in accordance with the average CPI figure for Hobart for the 4 quarters ending on 31 December in that subsequent financial year;Regional Corporation has the same meaning as in the Water and Sewerage Corporation Act 2012.

The fees specified in Schedule 3 are prescribed as the fees payable in respect of the miscellaneous matters to which they respectively relate.