Waihi Dam. File picture
IWI speakers and the Royal Forest and Bird Society objected to a contentious point in GDC's freshwater plan when hearings began yesterday. They were both opposed to any objective that would allow degradation of a waterway.
They were speaking at the opening of the hearing before five commissioners, three independent and two district councillors, which was hearing submissions on the regional policy statement.
Gisborne District Council strategic planning manager David Wilson said the “unders and overs”* approach was one of the main issues.
This largely related to the objective A2 from the National Policy Statement for Freshwater. It required that the overall quality of freshwater was maintained.
The use of the word 'overall' recognised that maintaining or improving all aspects of water quality everywhere might not be possible or desirable economically or socially.
This therefore allowed for some variability in water quality in a region provided the overall quality within the region was maintained or improved.
This had been discussed by the freshwater advisory group and pre-hearing meeting. There was agreement that an overriding approach would not be applied at a regional level and freshwater values would not be degraded through the limit setting process.
Overall water quality maintainedBut the government had signalled a change in that the scale of the overall water quality would be maintained, but based on an individual freshwater management unit rather than as a region.
“Given this uncertainty it is not considered necessary or appropriate to preclude unders and overs in future catchment plans in a freshwater policy."
Spokesman Al Fleming said the Royal Forest and Bird Society sought that a policy be included that specified the council did not support an unders and overs approach to water quality between sub catchments or within a catchment or region.
Speaking for the Hikurangi Takiwa Trust, Pia Pohatu said Maori did not want a policy that allowed water quality to be downgraded.
The submission from the Rongowhakaata Iwi trust noted that Horticulture NZ, Federated Farmers, and Fish and Game had agreed that an unders and overs approach would not be applied at a regional level and freshwater values would not be downgraded through the limits setting process.
The iwi opposed the vagueness of “values” when used with regard to unders and overs, as expertise might attach a quantitative notion whereas iwi and community attached a qualitative value on that.
Unders and overs*From Forest and Bird's Response guide to the Government’s consultation document: “Next Steps for Fresh Water”:At present the NPS - FM (National Policy Statement - Freshwater Management) requires that “overall’ water quality must be ‘maintained or improved’ within a region. The proposed change would narrow this requirement to a Freshwater Management Unit (usually a catchment or part of a catchment), rather than a whole region.
While the proposed narrowing appears to be an improvement we do not believe that the changes go far enough as the use of “overall” still implies that within a Freshwater Management Unit a council may allow freshwater quality to be reduced, as long as somewhere else within the FMU there is some improvement in water quality (‘unders’ and ‘overs’).
The Courts have held that “overall” cannot be interpreted in this way (unders and overs). We agree that Objective A2 of the NPS - FM should apply to Freshwater Management Units, but propose that the objective be further amended by removing the term “overall”.