Hikurangi farmers may take over running swamp drainage scheme

Hikurangi Swamp farming leader Geoff Crawford at the flooded swamp in 2020.

Hikurangi Swamp farmers are looking to a new management system for the $50 million Whangārei District Council drainage scheme.

Hikurangi Swamp scheme working group spokesperson Geoff Crawford said he wanted to move as soon as possible on setting up a new trust or similar to helm the 5600-hectare drainage scheme.

The scheme manages water draining from a 55,000 hectare Kaipara Harbour catchment on what was once one of the southern hemisphere's largest wetlands.

WDC waste and drainage manager Simon Charles said the Hikurangi Swamp working group had been looking into a new trust for a couple of years. That had reached the point where the next steps were to settle on what it wanted around a new management trust or similar.

The council on Wednesday formally voted 7-5 that Hikurangi Swamp farmers could explore operating the scheme themselves.

The vote also included a reduction in the amount of Hikurangi Swamp landowners' targeted rates funding to be collected in the coming financial year to put aside for building capital reserves. This pause was "until such time that the (Hikurangi Swamp) working group agrees to a reserve cap and explores operating the scheme as a trust."

The scheme comprises roughly 100 dairy farms with 15,000 dairy cows, plus beef farming. The farms are expected to produce $45 million of milk and beef this year.

Councillor Ken Couper brought the Hikurangi Swamp motion to the meeting. He said the way the scheme had been set up meant its farmers were comparatively in the same situation as the council itself facing Three Waters changes - where the Government planned to take ratepayer-funded assets they would effectively no longer have ownership of, nor a say on how they were managed.

Mayor Sheryl Mai said Couper's motion meant decision making on the fly. She could not support a motion that had not been adequately worked through by WDC staff. This meant the risk of it having unintended consequences the council was unable to respond to.

Seven of 13 WDC councillors present voted in favour of the motion, five against with one councillor abstaining due to conflict of interest and another not at the meeting.

Crawford said setting up a new management entity would bring more freedom to access funding such as from the Government, Northland Regional Council and the Kaipara Moana Remediation money.

The scheme needed major investment in the future to meet a large number of tough new national freshwater standards and more.

It had been hamstrung on this as funders had universally indicated the scheme was not eligible for their funding because it was a council scheme.

Crawford said farmers across the swamp were paying targeted rates to run the scheme on a daily basis, do renewals and repairs and since 2020 build a $40 million council reserve over the next 20 years towards significantly upgrading the scheme.

The majority vote also means the coming council financial year will see Hikurangi Swamp farmers paying $78,000 less towards building scheme reserves. This will result in a
4 per cent drop in Hikurangi Swamp scheme targeted rates for 2022/2023, WDC general manager corporate Alan Adcock said.

Mai and Crs Nick Connop, Tricia Cutforth, Shelley Deeming and Anna Murphy voted against the motion.

Deputy Mayor Greg Innes, Couper, Reid, Gavin Benney, Vince Cocurullo, Phil Halse and Carol Peters voted for it.

Cr Jayne Golightly was not at the meeting. Cr Greg Martin attended remotely but did not take part in the discussion due to a conflict of interest as a Hikurangi Swamp farmer.

■ Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.