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But there’s no artesian water, though we’re passed three thousand feet, And the contract price is growing, and the boss is nearly beat. But it must be down beneath us, and it’s down we’ve got to go. Though she’s bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below, Sinking down, deeper down, Oh, we’re going deeper down: And it’s time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan’s dwellin’, But we’ll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in Oh we’ll get artesian water deeper down. But it’s hark! the whistle’s blowing with a wild, exultant blast, And the boys are madly cheering, for they’ve struck the flow at last: And it’s rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below, Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow. And it’s down, deeper down- Oh, it comes from deeper down: Part of: The Song of the Artesian Water written in 1896 by Banjo Paterson The Development of Hydrogeology in Australia Bill H. Williamson Reformatted from an original document written by Bill Williamson in 1996 with some additional Appendix material added by Ian Acworth. Foreword Bill Williamson served in the Army during the Second World War before returning to Australia to undertake further training by taking up a Returned Serviceman’s Scholarship at university. Bill was ap- pointed to the Water Conservation and Irrigation Commission in New South Wales as a Hydrogeologist in May 1950. It is believed that this was the first government appointment in Australia as a Hydrogeologist. Bill Williamson was a key person in the development of an understanding of Australia’s groundwater resources during the next four decades. As well as being the first government hydrogeologist in New South Wales and leading the development of significant group of professionals, he had a considerable influence on a nation-wide scale. As a member, and for many years the Chairman, of the Groundwater Committee of the Australian Water Resources Council he played a major role in initiating many of the national programmes which led to such a significant increase in our understanding of groundwater issues during these years. In particular, the Australian Groundwater School was initiated by the Groundwater Committee under Bill’s leadership with the first School presented in Adelaide in 1965. The School was very successful and continues to the present day. Based on a short-course format with a practical bias and conducted by practising professionals in specialised fields, it provided a useful starting point for new groundwater specialists. It also provided a way for specialists in other fields to gain enough background in groundwater issues to enable them to take account of groundwater issues in their own work. Another important early task of the Groundwater Committee was the coordination of input into the Review of Australia’s Water Resources 1963, which was the first comprehensive nationwide assessment of water resources in Australia. The format of much of the groundwater parts of that document were strongly influenced by the work being done by Bill Williamson and his team in NSW. One of the New South Wales maps used in preparation of the nationwide maps produced for that review is reproduced in the Appendix. For more than a decade from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s Bill helped in the development of young professionals through a hydrogeological cadetship program (cadets included: Len Drury, Michael Williams, George Gates, Rod Harwood, John Ross and others). The benefits of which are still accruing both within and outside Australia. On graduating, some hydrogeologists remained within government but others eventually moved to the private sector and had successful careers in groundwater consultancies. Bill Williamson was also an important influence behind the formation of the Australian Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) in 1983 and was the Foundation President. This Chapter has grown to become one of the largest within IAH. Bill Williamson retired from the NSW Department in 1984. He always had an interest in the historical aspects of water issues in general, and in 1975 prepared a history of the development of water resources in New South Wales for the centenary volume of the Linnean Society of NSW (”From Tank Stream to Snowy Scheme”). It was appropriate, then, that he be asked by the IAH in 1995 to contribute an Australian Chapter to a proposed volume on the development of hydrogeology globally. The concept of a book concerning the History of Hydrogeology had its origins with Philip Commander in WA, an active IAH member, who proposed an International Contributions to Hydrogeology (ICH) book on the subject in 1991. Unfortunately, Phil did not complete this project due to the pressures of professional life and family. The IAH maintained an interest in the proposal and the title ”Hydrogeology at the Millenium” was assigned to the working document in 1995. Bill Williamson initially wrote a chapter (The Development of Hydrogeology in Australia) for this proposed book in 1996. For various reasons, the book was never successfully completed and the project was dropped by IAH for a while. However, Bill then approached his former Organisation (NSW De- partment of Land and Water Conservation) and asked George Gates, who was in charge at the time, to publish the chapter as a stand alone contribution. The Department had however evolved through a number of significant changes and felt unable to proceed with what was now a historical document. At the IAH Congress in Cape Town in 2000, interest in the proposal to publish a History of Hydro- geology was resurrected by John Mather and others and in 2001 a project was scoped that included two possible contributions. The first covering Pre-1800 was assigned to Michael Knight, the International President of IAH at the time; the second to cover international contributions between 1800 - 1980, was to be managed by John Mather. The first project remains in preparation but the second project succeeded in November 2012 with the publication of the IAH ICH Volume 28 - The History of Hydrogeology [Howden and Mather, 2013]. The chapter prepared by Bill Williamson was resurrected from the previous attempt and is now the second chapter of ICH-28. It is not clear to what extent it was modified by Bill from the 1996 version, but a copy of a version in April 2001 sent to Phil Commander is the same as a copy held by Don Woolley 2 in NSW and this is reproduced after minor editing below. This version must have formed the basis for ICH-28 and was probably sent by Bill Williamson to John Mather when John called for contributions. The ICH-28 volume contains most of the same material prepared by Bill Williamson with the exception that the material has been significantly edited and reduced in length with a large number of references left out. It is not clear who had the responsibility for the editing the original Chapter. We do not believe that this was undertaken in Australia but at some time later, presumably by the team of ICH editors in UK identified by Nick Robins and including John Chilton, Ian Holman and Harriet Nash. They produced a significantly more rounded contribution that forms a better integrated whole with the other international contributions. We have opted to publish below the original manuscript from 2001 on the basis that the local detail expunged from the original manuscript may remain of interest to IAH members in Australia. It is also clear that the history of the original contribution was unknown by many in Australia who also remained unaware of its existence. Bill Williamson has been selective in his choice of information to include in this text and at some stage, a more complete history could well be presented. It is also noted that the opinions expressed are those of Bill Williamson. The material in ICH-28 is reproduced with the kind permission of CRC Press and is to be acknowledged as: Howden, N. (Ed.), Mather, J. (Ed.). (2013). History of Hydrogeology. London: CRC Press, https://doi.org/10.1201/b12766 ICH-28 comprises 21 Chapters with national coverage of the US, Britain, Sweden, Spain, Serbia, Russia, Poland, Norway, The Netherlands, Japan, India, Hungary,Germany, France, Czech Republic, China, West Indies and Bermuda and Australia. There is much of interest to IAH members in these chapters and the whole volume is thoroughly recommended! The original manuscript prepared by Bill contained photographs form the early years of groundwater development. Unfortunately, these did not survive and a search for replacements has been made. This material is placed in an Appendix and does not form part of ICH-28. Bill Williamson died on 7th June in 2014. Forward prepared by Emeritus Prof Ian Acworth, Sydney, June 2019. Contents 1 Introduction 5 2 Building the foundations 6 3 Discovery of the Great Artesian Basin 9 4 Problems develop in the Great Artesian Basin 11 5 Post World War II to the 1960s 15 6 Post 1960 developments 17 6.1 Generalintroduction .... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .......... 17 6.2 Theroleofconsultants... ... .... ... .... ... .... ... .......... 21 6.3 Geophysics ...................................... ...... 22 6.4 Fracturedrocks.................................. ........ 23 6.5 Mining.......................................... ..... 24 6.6 Modellingofgroundwatersystems . ............ 25 6.7 Problemsoflegislation . ........... 26 6.8 Theenvironment .................................. ....... 28 6.9 Post-1960 studies in the Great Artesian Basin . ................ 29 7 Recent developments to 1990 30 3 A Historical document and photograph collection 37 A.1 GroundwatermapofNewSouthWales. .......... 41 4 1 Introduction With the exception of Antarctica, Australia is by far the world’s driest continent. It is sometimes referred to as the world’s oldest continent - not because of its geological formations but rather because of its predominantly ancient landscape.

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