Tukituki Water Security project is a 'whole of Hawke's Bay' project, says Mike Petersen.
OPINION:
Recent attempts to discredit the Tukituki Water Security Project, and the Hawke's Bay citizens guiding this work, ignore the reality of declining water quality in the face of Climate Change.
While 2022 has seen rainfall in the early part of this year, the clear and indisputable trend is for warmer, drier and more volatile weather for our region.
The purpose of the Tukituki Water Security Project has been clear from the outset: to address strategically important environment, water and health issues within Hawke's Bay, fast track adaptation in response to climate change, create jobs and develop the most environmentally friendly water security strategy in New Zealand.
The project has focused on rescoping a strategy for water security that explicitly prioritises the values and actions associated with Te Mana o te Wai, environmental remediation in the face of climate change, community needs and then those of commercial water users and all others in that order.
The Tukituki Water Security Project released its report in December 2021 looking at the needs of the catchment first, before analysing various options to ensure the health of the catchment and its people.
The report emphasised the fact that the Tukituki River is one of the main 'arteries' supporting the region. In the absence of a meaningful intervention, the prognosis for the health of the Tukituki River, and for the resilience and wellbeing of the communities it supports, is bleak.
Achieving water security for the region will require a multi-faceted approach to ensure more water is available for environmental remediation and to ensure the health of the river and our people.
A range of options were considered to undertake an assessment of water security options for the region, including both small and catchment-scale storage on the Makaroro River, farm scale storage infrastructure, accessing 'Tranche 2' groundwater, managed aquifer recharge and reallocating current water takes.
Improving land management practices to best practice and ensuring adherence with district plans is already in place and will be ongoing.
Acceleration of the effects from climate change mean that a combination of measures will be required to provide future resilience.
After a comprehensive assessment, Lewis Tucker has found that in combination with other water security measures, catchment-scale storage on the Makaroro is the most compelling option capable of delivering a significant amount of additional water to address water security.
Doing nothing in the context of catchment-scale storage would mean a reliance on what are currently a set of unproven and complex alternative water access options which at best have a localised impact within limited areas in the Tukituki Catchment.
Importantly, the Tukituki Water Security Report and recommended approach is consistent with a number of other reviews, both nationally and regionally, looking at adaptation to climate change across New Zealand.
Water is our most precious resource and it is important to preserve this for future generations.
Opponents of the Tukituki Water Security Report are now trying to discredit this work and its findings by targeting individual citizens associated with this project.
For the record, all of the individuals who have come together to oversee this work, are doing so because they believe in the future of Hawke's Bay, and the importance of improving the region for future citizens.
None of the individuals are being compensated for the considerable time and effort they have put in to this work. Tukituki Water Security Limited is a holding company to receive the donations and fund the rescoping work as required.
As the sole shareholder and director, I also do not receive any payment or personal benefit from this company.
Critics have also questioned the funding of the project by Centralines as one of 11 funders of this work.
I do not speak for Centralines, but as a power consumer in Central Hawke's Bay, I note their agreed vision - 'To enable long-term prosperity for Central Hawke's Bay through dynamic energy and infrastructure solutions' appears consistent with this work.
The composition of the Tukituki Water Security Project Steering Group has evolved during the course of this work.
Again – for the record, one of the conditions of Centralines funding was that they have two company representatives on the Steering Group to ensure they had oversight over the report and expenditure incurred.
This was agreed after the funding was offered, and as a local power consumer I would expect nothing less. Centralines directors have been active in their oversight, and I fully support their involvement in pursuit of the vision for Centralines and the region as outlined above.
Finally, the Tukituki Water Security project is a 'whole of Hawke's Bay' project looking to address water security for the region.
The Steering Group welcomes constructive discussion and input to help us all chart a better future for water security in the Tukituki catchment.
In order to achieve this goal, we would be better served debating the issues rather than the commitment of the individuals involved.
Mike Petersen is a spokesperson for Tukituki Water Security Project