The preservation of sustainable resources for agriculture – including water – must be absolute in addressing mining exploration or operational licence applications. 

The following potential impacts to the water resource must be considered:  

• Water access – physical access to the water resource, and its integrity, is a non-negotiable threshold requirement for NSWIC. There must be no circumstances under which the watercourse or aquifer is damaged or altered either permanently or temporarily. 

• Water reliability – the value of a water resource and an associated licence to an irrigator is not only access to it, but the reliability of it.
• Water quality – NSWIC is concerned at diminution of water quality from mining operations including salinity impacts and the addition of chemicals to water sources. It is our policy that contaminated water – be it through mining process or an adjunct to operations – is utterly unacceptable and must be vigorously guarded against. 

• Water availability and use – NSWIC is aware that mining operations and exploration are often significant users of water. We absolutely oppose the granting of water use exemptions in either case. Mining, by its nature, is a commercial activity. NSWIC insists that all mining use of water must be on the basis of licensed extraction to avoid third party impacts associated with further allocation in fully allocated systems.