Far North river down to record-low trickle

Kaitaia farmers have described the drought as a once-in-50-years event. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Kaitaia's Awanui River was expected to fall to its lowest recorded level yesterday as the drought drags on into its fifth month.

With no rain expected until late next month, the river - Kaitaia's main source of town-supply water - is likely to drop further still.

On Tuesday, the depleted river was flowing at 327 litres a second and falling by about 8 litres a second each day.

That means it was likely to match or fall yesterday below the lowest recorded flow - 320 litres a second in 1958.

The Far North District Council is allowed to take water for Kaitaia's town supply only under an emergency permit issued week by week by the Northland Regional Council.

Council spokeswoman Alison Lees said residents were now responding well to calls to cut water use by 20 per cent.

Most towns facing a water shortage - Kaitaia, Kawakawa/Moerewa, Rawene and, most recently, Kaikohe - had met or exceeded their savings targets. The exception was Opononi/Omapere, where demand was still outstripping supply.

The number of people being "dobbed in" for ignoring the rules by using sprinklers, filling up pools, waterblasting houses or washing cars with anything but a bucket had dropped to about one a day.

"I think this is because the message is well and truly out there now and most people now understand the severity of the situation," Ms Lees said.

A National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research agricultural climatologist, Alan Porteous, said forecasts showed the rainfall needed to break the drought was unlikely to arrive soon.

Kaitaia farmers he had spoken to called it a once-in-50-years event.

"It's the worst conditions that many of them would have expected in their working lives," he said.

Federated Farmers is not expecting pastures to benefit from rain until the end of next month.

Adverse-events spokesman David Rose said farmers cutting back on stock early had led to a 30 per cent drop in Northland milk production from last year's levels. Production was estimated to be $18 million less than last year.

Fonterra's general manager of milk supply, Tim Deane, said last season was "awful", so this season was about $30 million down on normal. Northland farmers were digging into their winter feed and buying supplementary supplies, adding to their financial pain.

Mr Rose said unlike Hawkes Bay, which had endured three dry seasons, Northland farmers were not used to drought and were not as prepared.

From November to January, the Far North received less than a third of its normal rainfall. In some areas that figure was just 10 per cent. With a dry March, the soil moisture deficit was 130mm. Mr Rose said Rodney District was also verging on drought.

- APN