But back to those questions. Questions Wilson claims these mostly pro-the-dam-come-what-may bigwigs still need to have answered before they can vote.
These were listed as how irrigated communities handle growth, increased pressures on the environment following intensification, utilising technology to mitigate issues and changing land use.
Apart from being the only time in his press release Wilson mentioned the word "environment", if you think about that list it assumes the dam - and subsequent intensification - is a given.
No question about how to prevent the environment being adversely affected by intensification. Only questions about how those effects are best mitigated after the damage is done.
In other words, conceding the scheme as proposed will cause significant problems, so they'd best go find out how to deal with them.
This backside-before-front approach suggests the council's role to "protect and enhance" the environment has been well and truly subsumed in the rush to turn water into gold.
Not convinced? Play spot the contradiction: Wilson, in one breath, saying he was confident the dam would be built; and in the next, that councillors were "still a mile away" from making any decision.
Let's be honest here, Fenton: HBRC made the decision to build this scheme four years ago; you've pushed it as fast and as loudly as possible ever since; and regardless of what conditions may be put on it by the Board of Inquiry, if they allow it at all you'll still back it. Repeated declarations of confidence in the scheme say as much.
Certainly the fact it may turn out to be a spectacularly uneconomic flop that beggars the region for the next 50 years appears irrelevant to those betting on a short-term gain in land prices. A marginal scenario might, however, save ratepayers $80 million if HBRC itself decides only to approve, not to invest.
Meanwhile the Board of Inquiry has been granted a month's extension to the process so they can better work through the complexities of the issues, including the scope of technical disagreement on key points regarding water quality and the effects of intensification.
In support of the need for delay, the BOI also pointed up the precedent-setting implications of their decision. They are, in short, being mindful to take due care.
These are precisely the reasons Ngati Kahungunu, Fish & Game, and ordinary concerned citizens advanced for delaying the move to a Board of Inquiry in the first place. A request the regional council refused to entertain.
But there's no question as to why that was, is there.
That's the right of it.
Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
