EXCLUSIVE: A NSW State Water employee has been stood down over allegations he helped landholders to access water earmarked for the environment.
It is believed a private investigator was in Hay last week talking to neighbours of the properties concerned, with the aim of mounting a case against the employee.
The water was allegedly used illegally to irrigate a part of the 100,000ha Lowbidgee floodplain, an expanse of farming country between Balranald and Hay where the Murrumbidgee River floods out.
The Weekly Times believes an environmental flow was released about six weeks ago, destined for the National Parks and Wildlife Services Yanga Station.
But it is believed satellite images taken soon after showed the water may have ended up on one of the properties on the flood plain.
A spokesman for NSW State Water said the department was conducting an inquiry into a series of allegations concerning an employee in that area.
That employee has been stood down on full pay while the investigation runs its course, he said.
The spokesman said allegations of water theft were always taken seriously.
One source told The Weekly Times that the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which investigates corruption in the public sector, was involved in the investigation.
But a spokeswoman for ICAC said she could neither confirm or deny whether the organisation was involved in the case.
While the current investigation is over the alleged theft of environmental flows, The Weekly Times has been told this might not have been an isolated incidence.
The Lowbidgee Floodplain is an isolated farming area used in the past to produce crops grown on the water stored in the soil after a flood has passed through.
