Former Queensland treasurer Keith De Lacy has been revealed as chairman of NT Water Pty Ltd, the private company seeking to build a major new water storage facility near Darwin in the Northern Territory.

Key points: NT Water is a private company seeking to build a major new water storage facility near Darwin in the Northern Territory

NT Water is a private company seeking to build a major new water storage facility near Darwin in the Northern Territory Features a diverse and high-profile board of directors including Queensland treasurer Keith De Lacy as chairman

Features a diverse and high-profile board of directors including Queensland treasurer Keith De Lacy as chairman NT Water said it was established to specifically develop the Adelaide River off-stream project, but now has multiple projects in the pipeline

Established in 2015, the company currently boasts a diverse board of directors which includes former Australian test cricketer John Maclean; former managing director of Cubbie Group and renowned water specialist John Grabbe, and oil and gas consultant Stephen Dykes.

NT Water's vision is to create an off-steam water storage on the Adelaide River capable of holding 310,000 megalitres, as well as a 10,000 hectare agricultural precinct, which the company is calling the Coomalie Agriculture Project.

Former Queensland Treasurer Keith De Lacy, now the chairman of NT Water Pty Ltd. ( ABC News )

"The directors of NT Water recognise the opportunity for expansion of the agricultural sector in the Northern Territory on the back of global growth in demand for food, biofuels and bio-chemicals," it said in a statement.

"The Coomalie Agriculture Project is designed to create 10,000 hectares of fully-serviced irrigated farming land.

"The proceeds of the sale of this land will be used to retire some of the debt on the project which will lower the cost of the water … each farm will receive a tradeable water allocation based on medium reliability water."

The proposed site, 70 kilometres south of Darwin, has been on the NT Government's radar for years, with the Power and Water Corporation having already conducted geotechnical work in the area, and more recently studied by the CSIRO as part of its Northern Australia Water Resource Assessment.

The CSIRO report concluded the Adelaide River Offstream Water Storage (AROWS) proposal could extract and store more than 50,000 megalitres of water per year at greater than 99 per cent reliability.

It said pumping 50,000 megalitres a year during high flow events in the wet season "would have a negligible impact on the flow habitats of estuarine and coastal species".

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However the report also claimed there was "no land suitable for irrigated agriculture in the vicinity of the AROWS", and the project had one of the highest cost-to-yield ratios of all of the potential dam sites in the Darwin catchments.

NT Water's plan to gravity-transfer floodwater into its storage facility is a significantly different, and much cheaper, approach to the long-held plan by Power and Water Corporation to pump water.

The ABC understands the company plans to capture wet season flows about 40 kilometres upstream and channel it into the storage area, with the ability to backflow for irrigation purposes.

The off-stream water storage proposal by NT Water is designed to store 310,000 megalitres. ( Supplied: NT Government )

Other projects in the pipeline

In its statement to ABC Rural, NT Water said it was established to specifically develop the Adelaide River off-stream project, but has since moved into other areas.

"NT Water and its personnel are actively engaged in applying similar technology to storage schemes for a wide variety of clients including Richmond Shire Council, cattle stations such as Flying Fox [in the Northern Territory] and mining and global agri-processing companies across Northern Australia."

It said along with its sister company called North Australian Clean Food Parks, it was also looking at plans to construct a series of "state-of-the-art industrial size" greenhouses near Darwin.

The AROWS proposal emerges as groundwater levels in Darwin's rural area reach critical lows. ( Supplied: NT Government )

Northern Australian Development Office general manager, Luke Bowen, said the NT Government had been briefed on the proposal and it was 'very keen' to look at how it could assist going forward.

"It makes a lot of sense [the AROWS proposal] and you can understand why it's been on the radar for a long time and this proponent has obviously thought through it a lot more," he said.

"It's absolutely fundamental that we drive these sorts of opportunities and certainly the NT Government is very keen to look at how we can assist.

"We know that nationally, there is a lot of potential investment for water infrastructure, we have a $5-billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) and a National Water Infrastructure Development Fund.

"We need to address our long-term water security [for the Greater Darwin Region] and we need to attract private investment."