Page 1628 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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remarks, referred to the amendments to the Water Resources Act in 2005 to institute a moratorium on granting further water allocations.
I recall the discussions we had in estimates a couple of years back about the particular issue of groundwater bores. Mr Smyth, in a question relating to page 42 of budget paper 4 of two years back, cited the fact that $160,000 was coming in from ground bores. That opened up a discussion with Mr Liston related to groundwater bores. Mr Liston, I understand, is regarded as something of a specialist in this area. I do not know if he is still there, but I am assuming he is. One of the points that emerged from the Chief Minister’s remarks is that he said:
… we don’t know as much as we should know about our ground water resources within the ACT.
The Chief Minister went on to say:
What we are seeking to do is to advance our knowledge of the ground water resource.
He referred to a recent decision of the Supreme Court in relation to the issues around licences and ownership of groundwater in the ACT and the changeover of responsibility or ownership that applied. He did signal, as he has at other times:
I have a concern that with a limited supply of ground water we do, as a community, need to look at how we should ensure the greatest possible use or benefit from ground water.
Mr Liston went on to comment in more detail. He said:
The budget item we’re talking about—the $160,000—is to ground truth what we know about ground water in four catchments and will involve drilling six bores in each of those catchments, three pairs of bores in each of those catchments. Desktop studies have indicated to us the recharge—the water that’s entering the aquifer—and the flow through that aquifer. We want to confirm those two figures with ground truth bores. To do that, we need to drill bores and then do pumping tests on those bores.
He went on to talk about that issue. At the time, I said to the Chief Minister:
… you’ve said the resources are quite limited in terms of ground water but, from what Mr Liston is saying, it sounds like we really don’t know at this stage what those limitations are that you were speaking of in terms of the life of the supply.
Things continued in that vein. The point of my raising that tonight is that, whilst I understand the arguments for managing our resources sensibly, particularly the ground water, either I have missed it or it has been produced and has not been circulated and I would be most interested in knowing whether we are any further advanced in actually quantifying what is available in terms of this particular resource in the ACT.
We had a lively debate in this place in August 2005 when that moratorium was brought in and there was mention of the cases that preceded that legislation. Whilst
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