Nature Conservation Council NSW (NCC), the state’s leading environmental advocacy organisation, is calling on the Minns government to put in place an urgent moratorium on floodplain harvesting to ensure the current flood is used to prepare rivers and wetlands for the coming El Niño summer, not as a bonanza for big irrigators.
Heavy rain fell across the Barwon River and its northern tributary rivers recently, with flooding now developing across the state’s northwest, creating opportunities for the diversion of huge volumes of floodwaters by irrigators.
Last month, NCC called for an immediate moratorium on floodplain harvesting after the Natural Resources Access Regulator (NRAR) admitted in Budget Estimates that court challenges to the validity of floodplain harvesting licences had created ‘uncertainties’
that made enforcement more difficult.
The government’s response was to say there was nothing to worry about. In a letter to community groups dated 29 September 2026, Minister for Water Rose Jackson wrote that, ‘given current climatic conditions and long-range forecasts, opportunities for floodplain
harvesting are expected to be limited in the foreseeable future’.
While a section 324 order restricts most floodplain harvesting licences due to current dry conditions and water levels at Menindee Lakes, exceptions allow large volumes to be pumped via off-river pools such as anabranches.
Where’s the water going?
Mel Gray, NCC Inland Rivers Community Organiser, said ‘Last month the government told us there was nothing to worry about because it wasn’t raining. Well, it’s raining now.
‘Today the floodplains of the Barwon are carrying the water that the rivers, wetlands and downstream communities of the Darling/Baaka River desperately need, ahead of what promises to be a hot summer. But this is also the same water thirsty cotton crops will
be wanting to boost the profits of big corporates.
‘The minister said she would not act to ban floodplain harvesting because there was no flooding happening – well that excuse expired last night,’ said Mel Gray.
‘Healthy rivers, thriving wetlands, downstream communities and Aboriginal cultural values depend on a water management system that is lawful, accountable, enforceable and worthy of public trust.
‘Right now, the government is asking us to trust a system its own regulator says it cannot fully enforce. Until they can prove the system works, floodplain harvesting should be banned.’
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
