Board to discuss Ruataniwha Dam

The Ruataniwha Dam board of inquiry will next week discuss how to move forward after a High Court ruled that it must rethink its decision.

Last month, the court upheld a challenge from three environmental groups, against the board's findings. After a lengthy hearing, the board granted consent to Hawke's Bay Regional Council's investment arm, Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Company (HBRIC), to build the Ruataniwha water storage scheme in Central Hawke's Bay.

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society , the Hawke's Bay and Eastern Fish and Game Council , and the Environmental Defence Society also successfully lodged an appeal against the regional resource management, known as Plan Change 6.

In his ruling, Justice David Collins sent the matter back to the board of inquiry for further consideration, delaying the project billed as New Zealand's largest irrigation scheme with a budget of more than $250 million.

The board is holding a conference next Monday to discuss procedural issues following the High Court decision. The Hawke's Bay Regional Council has agreed to invest up to $80 million, but only once HBRIC, the company, has signed enough deals with potential irrigators.

The investment company has to meet its end of March deadline for the signing of the water-use contracts needed for the project to go ahead.

The decision relates specifically to an out-clause the board of inquiry created to allow 615 larger farms to dodge a stringent new water quality rule relating to nitrogen leaching into waterways.

The board had exempted all farms larger than 4ha from having to comply with its finding that levels of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in the Tukituki River, downstream from the proposed Ruataniwha dam, should be less than 0.8 milligrams per litre.

The judge said it created "a factual fiction".

He said the board made two errors of law. The first was a failure to reconsult affected parties when it concocted the new Rule TT1(j), and the second that the new rule meant the council would lose an important tool in its management of the amount of DIN that entered significant portions of the catchment area.

Anyone wishing to participate in the conference should notify the Environmental Protection Agency at: tukituki.proposal@epa.govt.nz or on 04 916 2426 by 4pm January 29.