"We thought we could live with the conditions [in the draft decision] and we certainly think we can live with the conditions in the final decision."
0HBRIC would now continue with its efforts to sign irrigators up to take water from the scheme and secure further funding for the project. It is expected to cost $275million to build the dam and irrigation network, with about the same amount expected to be spent by farmers for their on-farm irrigation infrastructure.
Fish & Game, one of three groups to challenge an earlier board of inquiry decision through the High Court, said yesterday's decision imposed significant conditions on the catchment and was a "victory for environmental common sense".
"The environment can't be sacrificed to satisfy a few developers," Fish & Game chief executive Bryce Johnson said.
"Spending more than half a billion dollars on Ruataniwha to establish intensive agriculture in an unsuitable area defies logic. Such thinking means the environment inevitably becomes the casualty," he said.
Hawke's Bay regional councillor Tom Belford, a vocal critic of the scheme, said the final board decision would require farmers in the catchment to manage nitrate leaching on their property, contrary to the "spin" HBRIC had been putting on the environmental regime.
"It seems pretty clear that the board expects water quality to be improved," he said.
Irrigation NZ chief executive Andrew Curtis said the decision was a relief because it brought to an end a long process that would enable the dam to be built.
"Struggling communities such as Waipukurau and Waipawa will particularly benefit from the resulting economic growth," he said.
Groups involved in the board of inquiry process have three weeks to lodge an appeal.
