So it can be argued the whole dam scheme is simply the council's way of "redressing" its own failing - trying to conjure more water to cover the fact they've given too much of it away and the Tukituki catchment supply is diminishing.
Whether the health of the river itself could be improved by the RWSS is debatable, with experts on each side at odds over the outcome.
Granted, climate change will worsen flows in summer, and a dam storing winter rain could regulate that. However, that's not the primary rationale driving the scheme; if it were, it could be less than half the proposed size.
No, it's to give farmers even more water so they can intensify production - which may have positive benefits for them, but comes with a whole raft of negatives for everyone else. And it's everyone else who is paying for it.
But I'm not going to re-litigate the highly dubious economics of the scheme, or the overlooked negative social impacts on local communities, or even debate the equally dodgy environmental factors.
My point is simply to underline the scheme is not about "drought relief" but about intensification of a relatively small area for the benefit of a few landholders at everyone else's expense.
This is vastly different from, for example, designing a similar scheme to future-proof the existing already-intensified major growing area on which our region depends - the Heretaunga Plains. Which is, frankly, the project the HBRC should have started on first - if it hadn't felt a need to cover its rear-end.
I'm for water storage and would support helping a farmers' co-operative scheme, but this isn't one. And the risks to the district - everything from earthquake-caused flood to local schools suffering falling rolls because of fewer family farms - outweigh the overstated projected benefits.
Not to mention a dam will probably have a working life of only around 50 years because of shingle accretion. And then have to be demolished - at enormous cost.
Farmers in the area have had the best part of two centuries to figure out and implement methods for farming dry land that regularly suffers drought. Presumably they have this pretty well sussed, else they wouldn't be there now.
But still there are methods both new and very old that could increase soil health, sustain pasture growth, limit nutrient loss and control erosion, as well as helping retain moisture, which many of these farms have yet to put into practice.
Essentially there's nothing wrong with farming except the stocking rate. Any plan to increase that rate on dry land like this should be called what it is - a nonsense.
■Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet. This column is the opinion of the columnist on
a matter of public interest and does not necessarily represent the view of Hawke's Bay Today.
