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Petition to Watt: Stop Singleton Groundwater Grab

Across the Barkly and Central Australia, groundwater dependent ecosystems function as oases of the desert. The presence of shallow groundwater transforms arid land environments into woodlands and wetlands, which are sites of biodiversity, abundance and climate resilience. 

Groundwater dependent ecosystems also often carry significant cultural values, as sacred sites, meeting places, hunting grounds or places to collect bush medicines or bush foods. 

The future of these groundwater dependent water places is at a crossroads, and we need your help to avoid a Murray-Darling future where too much water is extracted and the Territory's landscapes and communities pay the price. 

 

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Will you sign?

Dear Minister for Water and the Environment, Murray Watt

I am writing to you asking for urgent action. The Singleton Groundwater licence is the largest groundwater licence in Northern Territory history and one of Australia’s largest groundwater licences for agriculture.

The project has been resisted and challenged every step of the way, and currently Native Title Holders are challenging the groundwater licence in the High Court of Australia. The proponent, Fortune Agribusiness, still do not have their environmental approvals.

Singleton is located on Kaytetye Country, 380 kilometres north of Mparntwe Alice Springs, near the remote community of Ali Curung.

The project will have nationally significant impacts to groundwater and environmental systems in the region with 60 kilometre diameter of groundwater dependent habitat at risk from groundwater mining. The irrigation development will lower the shallow groundwater table by up to 50 metres and there are up to 40 groundwater dependent sacred sites at risk. The project sets a dangerous precedent for the types of developments that are permitted and supported in Northern Australia which would not be permitted elsewhere in the country.

We call on you as the Federal Water and Environment Minister, to

  1. Expand the Water Trigger under Federal Environmental Laws (EPBC) to include all projects that have a significance impact on groundwater and surface water
  2. Commit the Federal Government to not provide any financial support for enabling infrastructure at Singleton Station
  3. Criticise the size and scale of this project and its nationally significant impacts to environments, cultures and waterways in the Northern Territory.
  4. Condemn the broken and failing water laws in the Northern Territory, including the complete erosion of Water Allocation Planning and Water Advisory Committees. 
Kind regards,
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