Draft Heretaunga Plains TANK plan to be presented to council

Issues such as stormwater discharges into the Ahuriri Estuary are considered in the draft TANK water management plan. Photo/Duncan Brown

More than six years since it was first formed the TANK group is close to giving its Heretaunga Plains draft plan change to the Hawke's Bay Regional Council for consideration.

The TANK plan would outline how the land and water, including the aquifer, in the Heretaunga Plains' Tūtaekurī, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro and Karamu catchments would be managed in the future.

The TANK group was assembled by Hawke's Bay Regional Council in 2012, comprising more than 30 representatives from tangata whenua, the primary sector, environmental groups, land users and councils.

Since then the group met regularly and negotiated through a lot of new science to understand the way land and water use affects the TANK area.

New science that became available last year revealed more about the aquifer and waterways of the Heretaunga Plains, most importantly that they were inter-connected and that the aquifer was not a bottomless resource.

Some of the issues considered by the TANK group included farm plans, industry clusters, and rules to exclude stock or increase planting beside waterways.

The draft plan would outline ways to manage land and water through objectives, policies, rules and limits, and aimed to represent the community's values around freshwater bodies.

It included a review of the minimum flows that control access to water, and new yearly allocation limits for the Heretaunga aquifer.

Urban water management also came under the spotlight during the TANK process, including stormwater management, rules and policy on which were being developed with the Napier City and Hastings District councils.

All the information was set to be delivered to the council's regional planning committee in August for consideration, and then the full council would decide whether to adopt it or consult.

Regional planning committee co-chairman Rex Graham said it had been one of the council's most complex and resource-intensive projects.

"The TANK plan will be our rule book to manage the aquifer and rivers where more than three quarters of Hawke's Bay people live and work. This is significant."