The plans were first submitted in 2020 and although submitted twice, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority keeps rejecting them due to lack of information or errors.
The water plans are submitted to the authority to achieve accreditation for the Commonwealth.
In February, the former NSW government said it had reached a “milestone” when it submitted the 20 water resource plans, after the deadline achieved by most other states.
For the Murray and Lower Darling plans, minor cross-referencing errors in the Water Sharing Plan for the Lower Murray Darling Unregulated River Water Sharing Plan 2012 were identified by the MDBA.
The plan also required changes to address MDBA comments for accreditation.
Water sharing plans continue to be the legal instruments for managing water resources in NSW.
Water resource plans are put in place to implement the Commonwealth's Basin Plan 2012.
The draft NSW plan, circulated in 2019, attracted a large number of submissions from water and agricultural groups.
Victoria submitted its two water resource plans covering the state in 2020.
The head of regulation in the Inspector General’s office, said in Senate estimates that accredited water resource plans provided the key trigger in the Commonwealth legislation “for us to act on a water theft offence”.
Without approved water resource plans, the only regulation of the take of water from rivers by agriculture is under state rules, known as water sharing plans.
24°C