"It's like a bank account that everybody is taking from but nobody wants to look what's in there."
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That is what Ron Clarke - who saw his bore at his home in Waddi suck air for three weeks in January - thinks of the state's groundwater management, with Mr Clarke calling for better management of the resource.
Mr Clarke has no alternative supply of water outside of his bore and had to borrow water from a neighbouring property to ensure he had access to the resource after his bore began to suck air for the second year in a row, having first sucked air during the same time last year, only regaining an operational bore after a period of consistent rain in February.
He said over time his family has had to add to the length of the bore but now he has reached the bottom of the aquifer and cannot go any further down without installing a new bore.
"The bore was at 50 feet when it was first put in at the 60s," Mr Clarke said.
"There were a lot more bores sunk [in the area over time] and then we started chasing the water with the pump... in the summer we'd run out of water and we'd have to put more pipe on.
"Now with the cotton and the nuts coming here I'm now into the aquifer, I'm at the bottom of the bore. I can't go any further without putting in a new bore and I'm sucking in air in the summer."
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Mr Clarke said he has sent a letter to state water minister Melinda Pavey calling for better management of the resource by the state government and said action needs to be taken before resources run out on a larger scale.
"People need to realise that the groundwater is not unlimited and it needs to be preserved and treated with respect," Mr Clarke said.
"If we don't manage this then nature will manage it for us and then it will be serious, because it will just turn the taps off."
A spokesperson for Mrs Pavey said the impact of groundwater extraction is managed through the assessment of applications by the state's water regulators.
"Either WaterNSW or the Natural Resource Access Regulator receives applications and then refers them, as required, to the NSW Department of Industry-Lands & Water for hydrogeological assessment," the spokesperson said.
The Area News contacted WaterNSW for comment but did not receive a response before the print deadline.
