Have your say: EP water allocation plan revision
Community consultation is now open for a revision of Eyre Peninsula’s water allocation plan, which regulates how water can be taken from the region’s prescribed groundwater resources and how much can be extracted.
The current Water Allocation Plan for the Southern Basins and the Musgrave Prescribed Wells Area was endorsed in 2016 with a review needed every 10 years. The Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board decided to bring forward the review and revision of the plan by 12 months, for completion by late 2025 and amendment of water licences by mid-2026. This comes after scientific assessment indicated that groundwater resources are no longer able to supply the same amount of water to support regional needs.
Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board General Manager, Jonathan Clark, says the review and amendment process will help to ensure that Eyre Peninsula’s groundwater resources are managed sustainably.
“If water extraction at current rates continues, monitoring and forecast modelling from the Department for Environment and Water shows there is an increasing risk of further environmental decline,” Mr Clark says.
“This includes potential irreversible damage caused by salinisation from seawater getting into the basin or water being drawn up from the lower saline aquifer. We simply cannot afford to let that happen.
“We are already observing increases in salinity in some of the production bores, which is a concerning sign.”
The Southern Basins near Port Lincoln currently supply 70 per cent of mains water for Eyre Peninsula, and the Musgrave area supplies 100 per cent of mains water for Elliston.
As well as supplying SA Water with mains water, both groundwater resources also supply stock and domestic water for local landholders, water for environment and cultural needs, and water for commercial use by private water licence holders.
There are currently 17 private licence holders in the Southern Basins and 7 in the Musgrave area.
In South Australia, water allocation plans set out the rules for managing the take and use of a prescribed water resource and are developed by regional landscape boards under the Landscape South Australia Act 2019, with input from the community, industry and other key stakeholders.
Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board’s Program Manager Water, Andrew Solomon, encourages Eyre Peninsula water users, and particularly locals from the Southern Basins and Musgrave areas, to contribute to the revision process.
“Given the value of groundwater to the environment, and for local and regional water users, it is important for the community to have a say about potential changes to the amount of groundwater that the revised plan will allow to be extracted,” Mr Solomon says.
“Community views are sought on the current plan, which estimates how much groundwater there is, what the needs are for environmental, stock and domestic water, and then sets rules for how much licensed water can be extracted in any given year, based on monitoring of the groundwater levels.
“We are really interested in how the community views the groundwater priorities for these areas, to balance the protection of groundwater from salinity, environmental and cultural water needs, stock and domestic, mains water and private commercial use.
“Feedback will be used to inform the development of a first draft of a revised plan.”
Follow-up consultation will ask for community views on the first draft of the amended plan, expected from mid next year. The final version of the amended plan will then go to the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water for approval in early 2026, with new licences set to be issued by the Department for Environment and Water before July 2026.
“We can foresee a significant reduction to current water allocations, given the data shows the groundwater is at concerning levels,” Mr Solomon says. “However, the review of the current plan and the drafting of the revised plan needs to consider issues raised by stakeholders during this consultation. This will assist us to achieve an appropriate balance between economic, environmental and social benefits from our groundwater resources.”
The community can get involved in the water allocation plan revision process via YourSAy. Requests for a meeting to discuss the review and amendment of the plan can also be made via that YourSAy page.
Written submissions can be emailed to EPLBAdmin@sa.gov.au or posted to EP WAP Revision, Eyre Peninsula Landscape Board, PO Box 2916, Port Lincoln, SA 5606 by December 16, 2024.