Orchardist Ken Kerrison first raised concerns about Canberra Airport's free use of bore water to the Howard government in September 2007.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He has been waiting for changes ever since.
Without federal oversight, Canberra Airport is free to use as much groundwater as it likes without charge and does not have to report total use to anyone.
''We try to limit our use of bore water in the interests of conservation,'' Mr Kerrison said.
''The airport office and retail developments have created massive demands for water for landscaping, and the fact that they pay nothing for groundwater, whereas they would pay about $5 a kilolitre for town water, means that they probably draw more water than all the other users put together.''
Mr Kerrison bought his Pialligo farm in 1973 and has about 800 fruit-producing trees including apples, pears and quinces.
He said the unregulated use of the water by a private business was inequitable as well as potentially damaging to the environment.
''Because it is on Commonwealth land, Canberra Airport is free to drill as many bores as it chooses, can take as much water as it wants to and pays nothing,'' he said.
''Our orchard is watered from our licensed bore. We pay for bores, pumps, filters and ongoing costs of getting the water to the plants … but Canberra Airport could take more water from the local aquifer than all the local farmers, all the 'wealthy' people in Mugga Way, and all the other users of bore water in Canberra, put together.''
Mr Kerrison said he was one of Canberra's few surviving farmers but his business would fold if the aquifer were to run out. ''When the local aquifer is destroyed, all the horticulture in Pialligo and Majura, which depends on that aquifer, will simply cease. Canberra Airport [can] then turn to town water and recover the cost from its tenants.''
He said government inaction in light of concerns about the state's water policies was ''the ultimate in hypocrisy''.
''I wrote to the PM Howard, [Malcolm] Turnbull, Environment, [Mark] Vaile, Transport, and some others in September 2007. I received a reply in October which was unhelpful … It was only after I wrote to [Penny] Wong [in 2009] that anything happened. Slowly.''
In her response to Mr Kerrison, Ms Wong, then minister for climate change and water, said legislation to give the ACT government control over all ACT water users would be introduced in the 2009 spring parliamentary sittings.
