Two MIA irrigators fined in the NSW Land and Environment Court

Dean Troy Salvestro has been convicted and fined a total of $156,250 for illegally taking water from the at-risk Murrumbidgee Deep Groundwater Source during a period of drought between July 2017 and June 2020.

Salvestro, who is owner of the property, which grows grapes, cotton, wheat, canola, barley and corn southwest of Griffith, pleaded guilty to five charges in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

Among other things, he was also ordered to pay $60,000 in costs.

The prosecution was brought by the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) and involved the over-extraction of 7,352.97 megalitres of water from various bores, the equivalent of 2953 Olympic swimming pools.

Four of the charges were concerned with breaches of bore extraction limits and one charge of taking water not in accordance with an access licence allocation. The court heard that at the time, the water taken had a market value of $1.1 million.

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NRAR director investigation and enforcement, Lisa Stockley, welcomed the court's decision and said it highlighted the risk posed to fragile underground water resources when water laws were not followed.

Groundwater levels at the time almost reached the historical lows that were observed during 2007 to 2009 at the end of the Millennium drought - the worst drought on record in southeast Australia.

"This aquifer is considered to be 'at-risk'from high water demand, and that means all water users taking licensed water from the groundwater source must have a meter, regardless of infrastructure size," Ms Stockley said.

In the second case, breaching a bore extraction limit has proved costly for the owner of a mixed cropping enterprise near Griffith who has been ordered to pay a fine of $26,250 and $20,000 in costs.

Robert Beltrame pleaded guilty to a single charge of breaching the conditions of his licence approval to over-extract 97.5 megalitres of water from a bore during a period of drought in 2019-20.

The prosecution was also brought by the NRAR in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

While the court accepted the defendant's breach was inadvertent, it found the over-extraction had an effect on the groundwater pressure in the aquifer and would have resulted in additional costs for neighbouring water users if they pumped water during the period of offending,

In handing down her decision, Her Honour, Justice Sarah Prichard SC said she found "beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant's over-extraction posed an increased risk of harm to the environment".

"I treat that increased risk of harm seriously and consider it to undermine the regulatory scheme of the Water Management Act," Justice Prichard said.

She said while the risk of harm was mitigated by the size of the over-extraction, it was "inescapable" the offence had occurred during a water year in which total extraction from the Deep Groundwater Source was larger than the average annual recharge t and when the ground water source was at its second lowest level on record.

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