Canberra

Water entitlements and allocations

The National Water Account 2010 (the 2010 Account) acknowledges the varying jurisdictional legislative frameworks related to Australian rights to water that support water resource management in Australia.
The jurisdictional legislative water resource management frameworks vary greatly between jurisdictions, sometimes making comparisons difficult. To facilitate meaningful comparison between the set of water accounting reports included in the 2010 Account, the Bureau of Meteorology (the Bureau) has developed and applied an accounting concept to classify and report water entitlements within a water asset / water liability framework. The 2010 Account applies a water accounting conceptual framework of regulated and unregulated to such entitlements and claims to water. The accounting concepts for regulated and unregulated may differ from the legislative interpretation in some jurisdictions.
The water rights, allocations and abstraction relevant to the Canberra region for 2009–10 are presented in the following table.

Note: The total water allocation announcement for the 2009–10 reporting year is assumed to equal 100% of the annual entitlement.

Water rights

R.1.2.2 Water access entitlement – unregulated flows
Urban
The reported volume of water equals the total amount abstracted from the Murrumbidgee River by ActewAGL. This value was obtained through ActewAGL production records for the 2009–10 reporting year. See line items 14.6.2 and 19.3.1 for further detail.

R.1.2.5.6 Water access entitlement – unregulated flows
Other lumped holder
Water rights reported in this line item refer to water access entitlements held in the New South Wales portion of the Canberra region. Refer to Line item 14.6.5.6 for information regarding abstraction under these rights. The types of water access entitlements are broken down in the following table.

R.1.3.4 Water access entitlement – regulated flows
Urban class
The total annual urban water access entitlement to ActewAGL is 71,000 ML. For the 2009–10 reporting year, 100% of the total urban water access entitlement was allocated.

ActewAGL currently holds the urban water access entitlement for the Canberra region, and has the right to store and harvest water for the purposes of the urban water supply. This entitlement is not tradeable.

The abstraction/use for this line item includes 4,681 ML of water transferred to Googong Reservoir from Mount Stromlo Water Treatment Plant. This abstraction is not counted as an abstraction under ActewAGL’s current water access entitlement, but has been included in this line item as it cannot be identified how much water came from regulated sources and how much from an unregulated source. See Line item 14.7.4 and Multiple use note M1.1 for further information.

Water markets activity

Water markets within the ACT are managed and regulated through the ACT Government Department of Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water (DECCEW) and the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) within DECCEW. DECCEW is responsible for water policy within the ACT, which includes the national water reform agenda and national competition matters relating to water access, pricing and trading. EPA reviews applications for water access entitlements and makes recommendations to the Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water. The EPA also coordinates policies on water resource management, regulates the allocation of water from waterways, and compiles and maintains up-to-date information on water resources within the ACT (National Water Commission 2010).

The Water Resources Act 2007 (ACT) (the Act) provides a statutory framework for how water is used directly from water bodies, including groundwater in the ACT. It provides a framework for the sustainable management of the Territory’s water resources.

The Act requires that water needed to maintain river systems and associated ecosystems is identified and reserved for that purpose. These requirements are generally referred to as environmental flows. Environmental flow requirements apply to all Territory water resources including water in rivers, streams, dams, lakes and groundwater aquifers, and are specified in the 2006 Environmental Flow Guidelines.

The Act requires that all of ACT’s water resources, and arrangements for their management, be set out in a water sharing plan. The water sharing plan identifies, for each water management area in the ACT, how much water is required to maintain river systems and associated ecosystems, and how much is available for entitlements for off-stream use.

The water sharing plan is divided into two disallowable instruments under the Act:

1. Water Resources (Water Management Areas) Determination 2007 (No. 1) details the water management areas.
2. Water Resources (Water Available from Areas) Determination 2007 (No. 1) details the surface water and groundwater available for taking from each water management area, and includes water reserved for future use.

Under the Act, a water access entitlement is required to be held before a licence to take water can be issued. A water access entitlement is a right to an amount of surface water or groundwater within a water management area (WMA). A licence to take water is required to extract water authorised under a water access entitlement. The licence to take water, which is based on a water access entitlement, states the location from which water can be taken and used.

A water access entitlement is an entitlement to the amount of surface water or groundwater stated in the entitlement. The amount must be stated as the lesser of:

1. a percentage of the total amount of the surface water or groundwater available for taking from time to time in the water management area stated in the entitlement
   or
2. a stated maximum volume.

As the water access entitlement entitles the holder to a percentage of the water available for taking, and that amount is likely to vary from time to time, the entitlement does not guarantee that a particular volume of water, or any water, will be available under the entitlement.

Water trade

Water trading in the ACT is restricted to the trading of entitlements within the ACT only. This is because protocols that enable interstate trading do not currently exist.

During the 2009–10 reporting year, only one trade of a water access entitlement occurred within the Canberra region. The total volume of the trade was 10 ML and occurred on the Molonglo River in the Central Molonglo water management area (National Water Commission 2010).