Gunnedah shire residents urged to look into water resource plan changes

Namoi Water's executive officer Jon-Maree Baker said locals "shouldn't feel like this is tidying up some word changes" and they need to know "they're changes that impact them".

"Licence holders need to be informed how it impacts them," Ms Baker said.

"People need to understand that this potentially isn't a reduction in entitlement in the ASGE [the achieving sustainable groundwater entitlement program], but any changes to the water sharing plan have the potential to impact licence holders reliability to access groundwater."

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But NSW Department of Industry-Water (DIW) representatives said the new plan was "a lot of the same from the old plan" at Tuesday's information session.

"There are some cosmetic changes to make it more readable - we got a lot of feedback, not so positive, about the impenetrability of the last plan," DIW's director water planning Vanessa O'Keefe said.

"There's a lot of word changes that don't mean anything, they're just for clarity ... there are few changes we are proposing."

Ms Baker said the department had to do a number of things following Tuesday's meeting.

"The department should be ... ensuring licence holders have access to [a groundwater-dependent ecosystem map] and that's very feasible with today's technology," the Narrabri resident said.

"It should be made publicly available on a website before the public exhibition period ends."

Other speakers included hydrogeologists Kate Barrett and Sue Hamilton.

Residents voiced their concerns to the speakers, including whether they needed to prepare for further water cut backs.

The speakers said they would take their suggestions into account but they would need to "see what happens".

Other sessions have been held in Tamworth, Wee Waa, and Werris Creek.

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