The Little Stream: A Councils Shame.....

The Rakaia River

It was with interest that I read Mayor Parker's perspective on Wednesday the 10th March about Canterbury water. Ironically it was the same day I received a Notice of Appeal which had been filed with the Environment Court on a resource consent hearing into a water take from the Hororata River for which I had been a submitter on.

The applicant is the Selwyn District Council who is appealing certain conditions of a recent resource consent decision. The irony is that on one hand we have Mayor Bob Parker saying it’s ‘crucial to vigorously embrace and enforce management required to protect our aquifers and waterways. We can also gain real efficiencies by redesigning current and often antiquated distribution systems. Water wastage must be eliminated’ while on the other we have a Council determined to do the opposite.

The resource consent applied for is to continue to take water from the Hororata River for stock water along with 2 takes from the Rakaia River for the same scheme – an extensive open water race system that is extremely inefficient, it’s estimated that only 2% (that’s not a mistake) of the water taken is actually being drunk by stock the rest is mostly lost into the ground through seepage from the races. In total the Selwyn District Council can take up to about 1932 liters a second (or 166 million liters per day) for this scheme with a maximum of 600 litres a second from the Hororata River. This water take results in the Hororata River often drying up below the water take during a long dry summer. In fact at times the whole stream flow has been diverted down the water race.

To help illustrate the problem, one dairy cow needs about 70 liters per day yet this scheme takes enough water for a whopping 2.38 million cows!! The 2007 statistics puts the total national dairy herd at only 5.3 million....

There are obvious solutions; ideally if the scheme was piped a large reduction in the amount of water needed could be achieved. Even if it were partially piped or other efficiency gains were found it could mean that the water taken from the Rakaia could very well be enough for the scheme allowing for the closure of the Hororata intake.

Switching to bore water is another with many Dairy farmers already having their own stock water systems and no longer rely on the water races. But the cost of changing is sighted as the obstacle, yet spread over the life expectancy of the scheme (the present scheme is 100 years old) it has to be relatively low.

A survey of Selwyn ratepayer reveals that 45.6% were in favour of closing this water race, and 61% by land area supported closure.

However the Council gives many reasons for keep them open saying they have existed for 100 years, are low cost, they recharge the aquifers, provide potable water and water for fire fighting. But the resource consent is for stock water use not for those other things. And times have changed, we now have Alkathene pipe and Mole ploughs. And it seems they forget that a river with water in it does exactly those same things too.

What the council doesn't mention is that a more efficient scheme would leave more valuable water in rivers, allowing that water to be reallocated at times of high flow. The amount of land freed up is also quite large. The races are 1 – 2 meters wide and extend over 500kms – that equates to between 50 and 100 hectares of land used just to transmit the water. Water quality in the races is low; they collect all sorts from dead stock to run off from the adjoining farmland, and require regular cleaning. Plus they are death traps for young rural children with 2 drowning in wider Canterbury in recent times.

Mayor Parker refers to the clear degradation of our aquifers and lowland streams, saying the current state of the environment cannot be ignored. ‘Remediation must top the list of priorities.’

It seems outrageous that in today’s world where most acknowledge the poor state of our Canterbury Rivers that such wastage can continue to occur particularly when it has such a detrimental effect on a small waterway. And knowing the growing concerns of the wider community a local body is still prepared to ignore those concerns when a clear opportunity is available to address them.

The recent resource consent decision was hardly onerous, it allows the taking of 341 litres per second from the Hororata, then when the residual flow at the intake point is greater than 134.2 l/s the amount allocated rises to 500 l/s with a maximum 600 l/s when the flow is greater than 6300 l/s.

What this means is whenever the stream flow drops below 634.21 only 341 l/s can be taken. As the stream drops further however, there is no further protection so once it gets down to 341 l/s all the stream flow can be taken.

Another irony is that Methven School got a bill for $20,000 for a leaky pool. Maybe the Council should pay for their leaky water races – however that would no doubt bankrupt them!

Mayor Parker finishes by saying a good starting point would be the locally driven Canterbury Water Management Strategy which apparently the District Councils have endorsed. The words sound good but it’s the action that is lacking. Rome has been burning while these councils fiddle, their seemingly old school approach to water management of take - take - take till it’s all gone is strongly evident. Plus a fair bit of the ‘we know best’ attitude.

What confidence can we the public have that our environmental concerns will ever be addressed? I suggest there’s already a large environment deficit. Perhaps the first step should be to fix some of the obvious problems then the public might jump on board.

The essence of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy sounds good, creating that win - win situation for development and the environment. But I think it could go even further: What if the goal were for Canterbury to become a World Leader in Sustainable Agricultural Development Employing Environmental Best Practices. Grand words perhaps and perhaps unachievable, but we would then hold the moral high ground when markets question the air miles attached to our products – we could say yes but look at how we produce them; instead of the present where denial is probably the best option

The contact details for the Selwyn Councilors who are resposnible for implemeting any change are as follows. Ifyou would like to be heard on this issue just copy and paste their email details into the address bar.

kelvin.coe@selwyn.govt.nz nigel.barnett@selwyn.govt.nz jack.pearcy@selwyn.govt.nz gary.doyle@selwyn.govt.nz annette.foster@selwyn.govt.nz sarah.walters@selwyn.govt.nz debra.hasson@selwyn.govt.nz

malcolm.lyall@selwyn.govt.nz lindsay.philps@selwyn.govt.nz

john.morten@selwyn.govt.nz bob.mugford@selwyn.govt.nz