| Dear Nick, The
Water Rights Trust agrees with the Government’s view that
ECan’s performance does not provide confidence that their
politicians are able to lead the region through the quantum change
that is needed for Canterbury to get on top of its water issues.
We are at a point in our regional history where we must act wisely,
boldly and decisively and the ECan Council has demonstrated repeatedly
that it is incapable of such leadership.
The central argument in our region is not about
growth or no growth in the rural sector. Neither is it about whether
a short term diminution of democratic process is a bad idea. It
is about whether we can find the collective will to take the hard
decisions in the best interests of those who will follow us. It
is about whether we can move from undisciplined growth to environmentally
sustainable growth. Simply doing our best under existing mindsets
is clearly not enough while our water problems continue to mount.
The destruction must not only be stopped, it must be reversed. Some
people may well be hurt as the result of such a step - the scale
of the behaviour changes that are necessary are yet to be appreciated
by many. Indeed, it will cost us all. But then, so it should. We
have been living beyond our environmental means for far too long.
What Neil Deans had to say in his perspective
article in The Press April 6 on water conservation orders and the
impact on the Land and Water Forum echoes the impact on the collaborative
approach achieved over nearly 10 years in developing the Canterbury
Water Management Strategy (CWMS). Like many others, the Water
Rights Trust support for the CWMS is predicated upon adequate environmental
protection. Under the new legislation, the protection offered by
WCO’s in Canterbury will be considerably weakened. Why is
this?
Water Conservation Orders have protected Canterbury’s
nationally outstanding rivers and lakes including Lakes
Coleridge and Ellesmere
/ Te Waihora and the Rakaia,
Ahuriri
and Rangitata
Rivers from being over-exploited. Having these WCO’s in place
has enabled many of us to support the CWMS knowing that proposed
infrastructure projects would need to comply with them. WCO’s
in Canterbury provide examples of a careful balance between irrigation,
conservation and recreation interests. The Hurunui
River may well be subject to industrial development as the result
of this legislation, yet there are alternative options for providing
water to North Canterbury farmers that would render dams on this
marvelous river system unnecessary.
The CWMS is due to be framed into a critical
events sequence, with some of these events requiring further support
from Government. Probably included would be the imposition of a
volume related levy on water, resolution of Maori concerns, integration
with the Land and Water Forum recommendations; how to deal with
the ongoing processing of consents independent of CWMS processes
(eg Hurunui Water Project; Central
Plains Water and the ongoing plethora of smaller consent applications)
that have the potential to block the way to the most efficient,
effective and sustainable results. (The provision for moratoria
in the new legislation on new water takes for irrigation may be
helpful here). But the major issue in achieving environmentally
sustainable development of agriculture in Canterbury concerns land
management. This is where further development of the CWMS has so
much to offer.
Our grave concerns about the sweeping changes
to Water Conservation Order (WCO) legislation specific to Canterbury
places the WRT in the vexed position of knowing that the CWMS is
the only real way forward, but that we cannot support it in the
knowledge that it may become primarily a vehicle to access relatively
unlimited water from our rivers.
Given that the Steering Group of the CWMS has
succeeded in building mutual understanding among its members (and
by implication, among the diverse range of constituents supporting
those who comprise the Steering Group), and has a firm grasp of
the issues and how best to approach them, it seems foolhardy to
diminish the significance of the CWMS in any new legislative and
governance arrangement over water in Canterbury. Such a move, along
with the dismissal of the ECan Council, would be justifiably perceived
by many as too big a hit to local democracy and would lead us straight
into civil disorder. Yet that is what the Government’s new
water management act may well do, despite the mandate it has given
to the CWMS.
For those who say they are bemused at what all
the fuss is about over water conservation orders, and that nothing
really has changed, then we must ask why did the Government take
such contentious action? How indeed could the Government have got
this so wrong? The Government has taken a step too far and would
be wise to retract it promptly.
Yours sincerely
Murray Rodgers
Chairman, Water Rights Trust
ph 3765 612; 0274 396 401 |
