Gerard Pain: Plan B, C ... for water Hawke's Bay storage

Gerard Pain

With the change in central government, it is probably now safe to say that the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme in its proposed form is financially "dead" and that the Whakaroro River is no longer threatened by it.

As part of my "campaign" to save that river, I have always proposed alternatives. In a July 28 HBToday "Talking Point," I suggested it was time to start looking elsewhere for ideas that would benefit all farmers in Hawke's Bay rather than just a few in a small part of CHB.

So what could some of those alternatives be?

Plan B could be to set up an Institute of Dryland Farming (CHB has been suggested as an ideal venue) that would support farmers to continue traditional low risk dryland farmland practices and how to be drought resilient.

Plan C could be for Federated Farmers to bring back those South Island farmers they invited to Waipawa a few years back to once again tell us about the water schemes that they, as farmers, put together out of their own resources.

The regional council could assist by "streamlining" resource consents so that those consents do not act as a financial impediment.

Plan D could be to do nothing in the Ruataniwha Barn because the Board of Inquiry considered the aquifer was not over-allocated as the former regional council had been telling us (as a reason to build a dam).

I am not so sure the board listened to the right scientist on this point but I am sure the residents of Ongaonga and Tikokino, who have been having trouble with their water-wells, would share my view.

Plan E could be for the regional council to build community-owned storage ponds alongside the various rivers in HB (in non-ecologically sensitive spots) to be filled in times of flood.

The water could then be released back into the rivers in low flow times to help maintain minimum waterflows; this idea should find favour with the water users group here in CHB who recently petitioned the regional council to delay the PC 6 minimum waterflow increases scheduled for next year and again in 2023.

These storage ponds could be treated like the stopbanks around HB which were built back whenever and financed by long-term loans that are paid for in our regional rates; everyone would pay a little but those who benefit directly (ie the water takers for irrigation and industry) pay the bulk dependent on how much they take .

The regional council was granted resource consents by the board as part of the RWSS to build an "Up-river water intake" in the Waipawa River near Springhill and a "Down-river water intake" near Tamamu in CHB to feed irrigation canals and pipelines.

At the moment we have nothing to show for the $20 million of ratepayer money that was spent of the RWSS (other than hopefully some red faces on the proponents of the dam, who blindly supported it even after more and more evidence pointed towards it not being viable economically and environmentally).

Here is an opportunity to get something back from the $20m and buy some farmland in a couple of spots to flood for a good cause where the Regional Council already has resource consents to take water from the rivers.

Gerard Pain is a Hineru resident and a former Central Hawke's Bay mayoral candidate.
Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz.