A northern NSW cotton farmer charged over Water Management Act breaches after an ABC Four Corners report has been fined $190,000 by the Land and Environment Court.
The fine is well below the $742,500 maximum that could have been imposed on Anthony Barlow, who owns the 3,500-hectare Burren Downs, a farm which borders the Barwon River at Mungindi.
Mr Barlow pleaded guilty to pumping water from the Barwon River for two days, during an embargo that was imposed from February to June in 2015 because of a severe water shortage in Broken Hill.
He pumped enough water to fill almost 153 Olympic swimming pools, and according to court documents he was planning a summer cotton crop over two fields.
Meanwhile Broken Hill was warned by authorities it may run out of water, with the Menindee Lakes, which the town relies, on resembling "big sandpits".
During his trial he gave evidence that at a meeting of water users on March 25, 2015, he was told personally by then water minister Kevin Humphries that the ban had been lifted.
In his sentencing, Judge Brian Preston found that after the minister arrived at the meeting he reiterated that "there is currently no embargo on the Barwon-Darling".
An employee of the Office of Water, who was at the meeting, also made a file note that the minister replied to a water user's question with: "You're not listening … there's no embargo."
Following the 2017 Four Corners episode, Mr Humphries denied he had told the meeting of irrigators they could access water during the embargo.
Despite what the prosecution described as "confusion" caused by the minister, Judge Preston ruled Mr Barlow had been recklessly indifferent as to whether the embargo had been lifted.
"He knew that the embargo was imposed by a formal process and needed to be lifted by a similar formal process, but he took no steps to ascertain whether the formal process for lifting the embargo had been carried out."
Mr Barlow said he accepted responsibility for knowing about the embargo and if he knew it was in place he would not have pumped the water.
However, the judge said the prosecutor, Water NSW, had not established beyond reasonable doubt that the illegal pumping had affected the rights of others or caused harm to the environment.
The total fine of $189,491 also includes penalties for two counts of pumping water while metering equipment was not working properly.
Mr Barlow will also have to pay the costs of the case.
But at the end of last year Barlow pleaded guilty to all three offences and the cases against his parents were dropped.
