During budget estimates, Legislative Councillor Rob Valentine asked Environment Minister Roger Jaensch what protection was in place to ensure the environmental health of Tasmania's waterways.

Mr Jaensch deferred the answer to that question to Environmental Protection Agency director Wes Ford, who said it was not a responsibility of the EPA but for NRE Tasmania.

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However, the government recently allocated funding in this year's budget to separate the EPA from the government and ensure its independence and allow it to do its work unimpeded.

A spokesperson from the EPA said the separation from government did not change that it was not responsible for water quality and monitoring compliance.

"No, this responsibility sits with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania (NRE Tas)."

Researchers and academics have raised concerns over the future of Tasmania's waterways after reports showing nearly half of them had experienced ecological decline.

There are also concerns over increasing competition for Tasmania's freshwater resources amid exponential increase in irrigation, agriculture, hydro projects such as Battery of the Nation and Marinus Link, along with emerging industries such as hydrogen - all of which require vast amounts of fresh water.

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The EPA also does not require utilities and companies such as TasWater, Hydro Tasmania or Tasmanian Irrigation to provide water quality and environment data.

The spokesperson said TasWater had a significant water quality monitoring program, which was a requirement under the permit conditions imposed by the EPA.

However, it said it is not involved in the development of irrigation schemes in Tasmania. The exponential growth of irrigation in Tasmania had been linked to poor river health by an internal report conducted by NRE Tasmania released publicly.

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However, Mr Ford said he was a member of the Rural Water Round Table, a working group that will help to implement the aims of the Rural Water Use Strategy.

The RWUS has been criticised as being a document to enable the vision of the state government's AgriVision 2050 policy, which aims to boost Tasmania's farm gate value to $10 billion by 2050.

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