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Existing lawful water use was a mechanism to bridge the gap between the old
legislation and the new National
Water Act (NWA) [PDF
- 239 KB]. It was only intended as an interim measure to allow water use
to continue until it can be converted to a licence.
An existing lawful water use is a water use that lawfully took place in the
period two years before the commencement of the NWA. This allowed water use that
lawfully took place to continue until such time as it can be converted into a
licence. However, if you were not using water in the two years before the NWA
was promulgated, but there was good reason why not, you can apply to have your
water use declared as an existing water use. You can also apply to have the
extent of your existing lawful water use verified at any stage, or the
Department can ask you to apply for this verification. This process is
undertaken in two stages namely
- Validation - confirms how much water you were using in the two
years prior to the promulgation of the NWA
[PDF
- 239 KB], and whether this was correctly registered.
- Verification - confirms if the water use in that period was
lawful. The Department use a variety of techniques to do this including
satellite and aerial photography, irrigation water use models, and interviews
with the water users.
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