DoC call to protect stream creatures

Richard Allibone.

Fears about the looming extinction of a native galaxiid fish species, and related problems with underfunding at the Department of Conservation, surfaced during the hearing on the Kye Burn river catchment.

An Otago Regional Council consent panel has reserved its decision over an application to update historic deemed permits in the catchment, under the Resource Management Act.

After a three-day hearing, panel chairman Cr Trevor Kempton said on Friday the decision would be issued within three weeks. Cr Kempton thanked participants, including farmers from the Kyeburn area, for ''taking such an interest'' in proceedings.

In earlier evidence, freshwater consultant Dr Richard Allibone praised the collaborative approach taken by Kyeburn farmers who had long worked to develop a water group, and a jointly-owned firm, Kyeburn Catchments Ltd (KCL).

Dr Allibone urged the development of an innovative management plan to help protect three threatened native species, including the roundhead galaxias, whose main population was in the Kye Burn and tributaries.

The consent panel, comprising Cr Kempton, Cr Andrew Noone and Clive Geddes, is considering an application involving 16 farmers, all part of KCL, and about 30 historic deemed water permits.

The consent is to take surface water for irrigation, storage and stock water. On Friday, regional council officers softened their earlier recommended levels for residual water flows close to four take points in the Kye Burn.

For KCL, Phil Page had warned that KCL's planned collaborative approach, and its environmental benefits, could be undermined by an earlier unexpected recommendation from council officers that KCL maintain residual flows of 200 litres/second at all four points, not just at the most up-river take point.

Council officers later explained on Friday that, after listening to hearing evidence, they now recommended 160 l/s near the most downstream take point, and 180 l/s near the three up-river takes.

Council environmental resource scientist Pete Ravenscroft predicted that roundhead galaxiids would soon be reclassified as ''critically endangered''. The species would either ''be extinct in 20 years or on the verge of extinction'', he also warned.

More than 20 separated and ''sandwiched'' populations of the native galaxiids were threatened by exotic salmonid fish, including trout, in different sections of the tributaries and river.

Appearing for the Director-general of Conservation, Pene Williams earlier said the applicant's lawyer had pointed out that the Conservation Act allowed for the creation of Freshwater Fisheries Management Plans. But Doc's ''limited statutory management planning resources'' were focused elsewhere, and threatened species such as non-migratory galaxiids were covered by ''non-statutory threatened species recovery plans'', Ms Williams said.

In his summing up, Mr Page said KCL was happy to co-operate with an overall fish management plan, and said Ms Williams had not denied Doc had ''the necessary powers and functions'' but had said only that ''they are expensive''.

As of last Thursday, KCL had ''spent $474,167 on this process''. Doc had statutory responsibility to manage native fish and appeared to be engaged in ''cost-shifting rather than exercising their functions'', Mr Page said. The deemed permits involved in the hearing were issued for gold-mining purposes in the 19th century and must be updated by 2021.