You are warmly invited to attend a Kirby Seminar presented by Associate Professor Alex Gardner
Faculty of Law, The University of Western Australia, Centre for Mining, Energy and Natural Resources Law; Chief Investigator, National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training.
Alex Gardner is Associate Professor of Law at The University of Western Australia where he teaches Administrative Law, Environmental Law and Water Resources Law to undergraduate and postgraduate students. He is also Adjunct Professor at the Australian National University College of Law where he teaches Water Resources Law to postgraduate students, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Queensland Law School teaching Water Law to postgraduates. Alex researches in Natural Resources and Environmental Law, with a special focus on Water Resources Law. He is the lead author with Richard Bartlett and Janice Gray of Water Resources Law, July 2009.
‘Mining access to water resources – traditions and developing principles’
Are mining and coal seam gas (“CSG”) production subject to the key legal principles that apply generally to water resources management, especially the allocation of water resources in circumstances of water scarcity and competing uses? The sometimes exceptional circumstances of the mineral sector’s use of water was acknowledged in clause 34 of the 2004 Intergovernmental Agreement on a National Water Initiative (“NWI”), by which it was agreed that minerals and petroleum project proposals may need to be assessed in light of sector specific factors that may require management arrangements outside the scope of the NWI.
Recently, the exceptional NWI status of the minerals and CSG sectors has been questioned because of the growing scale and risk of the water resource impacts, especially in respect of groundwater in certain regions. The National Water Commission (“NWC”) said, in its 2010 Mining and Coal Seam Gas Positions Statements, that the clause 34 special circumstances had not been adequately articulated and that the regular resort to environmental approval laws to make special arrangements for resources projects was no sufficient substitute for better integrating these sectors’ use of water resources into the general water planning and entitlement regimes. There was particular concern with cumulative, possibly irreversible, impacts and there is a growing concern with legacy liabilities post mining tenure.
This presentation draws on a paper of the same title that is soon to be published. It reviews the extent to which the regulation of the taking and interference with water resources by mining and CSG operations has been reformed to bring them under the general regulatory regimes for water resources management. It analyses aspects of the relevant legislative regimes of New South Wales, Queensland and the Commonwealth, to evaluate the extent to which the National Water Commission’s recommendations have been implemented by legislative reforms and the key principles of those regimes, including adaptive management.
Monday, 16 June 2014 at 12:00pm
Lewis Seminar Room, W38
Economics, Business and Law Building, University of New England
For further details: Mark Lunney {local landline prefix}3 3976
