Arris Blog

Mick Owens has had 41 years’ water management experience in the Public Sector of Western Australia with 30 years in regulation of water activities throughout the south west.

Mick was a Program Manager for Water Licensing for over 15 years and was regarded the government’s most experienced manager in surface water regulation, licensing and policy.  He was also heavily experienced in working with the agricultural industry, famers and community committees in supporting and solving disputes between competing uses of water and applying current law and government policy, especially to surface water users and Myalup groundwater users.  Mick proclaimed and licensed the Margaret River Wine Region.  He shaped and influenced water law change implementation and agency strategy and policy on regulating surface water including the distinct regimes of allocating surface waters as opposed to groundwaters, introducing through innovated regulatory regimes, the ability to licence and capture low reliability high flow waters.

Mick has 25 years’ experience working with various surface water runoff models to predict, allocate and control use of highly variable flows.  He also talked to farmers and communities in introducing controversial water reform in Western Australia in 2000.  He has managed multidisciplinary regulation teams in Water, Environmental impact Assessment, Pollution Control and Vegetation Clearing Regulation.  Mick pioneered Environmental Impact Assessments and Environmental Management Programs for reticulated sewerage wastewater treatment plants of towns and cities in the south west of Western Australia.

Mick left the public service in 2016 as the most experienced and knowledgeable administrator of Water Law in Western Australia.

Key skills include:

• Solving regulatory pathways for famers water rights
• Water rights, entitlements and trading
• Water Law in Western Australia
• Strategic problem solving of regulatory burden
• Inter-relationship of Western Australian Environmental and Water Legislation
• Risk matrix approaches to environmental and water regulation
• Application of surface water analysis/modelling for proving reliability of supply
• Compliance and enforcement of Environmental and Water regulation
• Compilation, interpretation and analysis of water data
• ArcGIS
• Excel