The Federal Government has announced approval of Western Australia’s compliance and enforcement plan to protect the state’s water sources from illegal use.

 

State Water Minister Bill Marmion said the integration of the State’s compliance and enforcement plan with a national framework would provide the State with extra resources for its increased efforts in this important area of operations.

 

WA’s implementation plan for the National Framework for Compliance and Enforcement Systems for Water Resource Management was recently approved by the Federal Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities Tony Burke.


“This will complement the actions the State Government has already taken to strengthen its compliance and enforcement systems,” Mr Marmion said.


“The plan’s approval validates the measures we are taking to toughen up on compliance and enforcement by allowing us to allocate extra resources to an area of water resource management that hasn’t been a priority under previous governments.


“The Department of Water licenses more than 2,700GL of the State’s water to service providers, industry, business and community organisations for a range of purposes including providing drinking water, growing food, manufacturing goods and maintaining parks and sports grounds.


“To ensure management decisions are followed on the ground, the State has recognised the need to better identify and penalise water users who want to go outside the State’s water laws.