Daly Roper Beetaloo Water Control District Extension

Published online 19 Oct 2022

The boundary of the Daly Roper Beetaloo Water Control District (the district) has been extended by the Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water Security.  This extension provides progress on recommendation 7.7 in the final report of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory (March 2018). The district maintains the name Daly Roper Beetaloo.

The district has been extended to include the Georgina and the Wiso Basins, and now includes Cape Crawford, Top Springs, Three Ways, Wutunugurra, and Canteen Creek. This extension is aligned to the management of water resources associated with the Beetaloo Sub-basin.

The extension will allow for water allocation plans to be developed and confer new water management rules for everyone wanting to access and use water in the district, which includes requirements for:

• bore work permits
• water extraction licences to take surface and groundwater.  This provision extinguishes the current exemption for bores that are equipped to pump less than 15 L per second requiring a licence. However, water extraction of less than 5ML per year continues to be exempt from licensing requirements for activities other than mining and petroleum
• installation of water meters and provide water usage to Water Resources Division for licensed extraction.

There is limited irrigated activity occurring on the extension area and it is currently unlicensed.

Note

• Water for stock and domestic use remains exempt from licensing.
• Parcels of land where the combined groundwater use from all bores is less than five megalitres per year remain exempt from licensing.

The extension was declared on 19 October 2022.

Download Daly Roper Beetaloo Water Control District Map PDF (1.2 MB)