Megan Rose: Individual consents under threat

Megan Rose

At the recent Hawke's Bay Regional Council meeting, councillors and the public were told how HBRIC will interpret the final decision of the Board of Inquiry if proposed stringent measures on water quality are retained.

During an update on the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme, given by council's investment company (HBRIC), chairman Andy Pearce explained that any farmer signing up to the RWSS will not need a consent for land use change (for example intensification) because the global consent, held by the entity managing the proposed RWSS, does not require it.

While farmers who do not sign up to the scheme are unlikely to get consents for land use change, increased or even renewed consents for water take, HBRIC says farmers who sign up to the scheme will be largely immune to any compliance measures set out in the board's final decision, based on the premise that any decision of the board cannot "frustrate the use of scheme".

Which appears to mean, for the global consent term of 35 years, RWSS Ltd would not require its farmers to reduce pollution, merely manage any excess.

Effectively farmers in the dam footprint are being told "if you want to get around the DIN limits that might be imposed, sign up to the scheme".

The rationale for this is that a significant area of the catchment already exceeds the DIN limit (Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen) of 0.8mg/l potentially being proposed by the Board of Inquiry.

The logic goes that an individual farmer seeking land use change will not have that consent approved because the DIN limit in the catchment is already exceeded and any proposed land use change could contribute to further pollution.

Last month Transparent Hawke's Bay hosted a public meeting at EIT.

The aim of the meeting was to get key players in the RWSS proposal to an open forum where the public could ask questions about the scheme.

Regional councillors and HBRC senior staff were invited, as was its investment company chief executive Andrew Newman.

Guest speakers included economist Peter Fraser, environmental scientist Corina Jordan and Hugh Ritchie, a CHB farmer, director of Irrigation NZ and national board member of Federated Farmers.

This was a genuine endeavour by THB to get all parties to a public table in order to clarify the mounting concerns, and get answers to questions around this scheme.

Questions submitted by the public prior to the meeting were circulated to all invitees.

As many will have read in this paper, Andrew Newman declined to attend, stating he would not be willing to speak to the public until the Board of Inquiry had delivered its final decision.

None of the questions related to the board decision except the one, posed by many, especially farmers: "What is the process HBRIC (as the consent holder) will undertake with land owners who are found to be contributing to an exceedance of any DIN limit?"

At last Wednesday's HBRC meeting, we got the answer! "If you sign up to scheme water you won't have to worry about it."

Also at that same meeting of the regional council last week HBRIC asked, in its Statement of Intent, to borrow up to 5 per cent (or $10m) against its assets -- Port of Napier and RWSS -- without council approval.

Endeavours to reduce the amount of borrowing to 1 per cent without council approval was defeated, as always, by five votes to four.

We now have a Council Controlled Investment Company able to borrow a further $10m against our Port of Napier, in addition to some $14m already spent on the RWSS.

Do we have an out of control Council Controlled Organisation?

You can share your thoughts at info@thb.org.nz

DIN is the level of Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen that contributes to degradation of water quality in rivers. DIN is nitrate leached from land -- sometimes naturally, but exacerbated by land use activities, particularly intensification of land use on lighter free draining soils.

Footage of the RWSS Public Information Evening held last month at EIT can be viewed at: https://vimeo.com/128966544

* Megan Rose is the Chair of Transparent Hawke's Bay, an incorporated society formed by local citizens concerned about the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme process and transparency in local government.

* Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's personal opinion, and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz.