It does beg the question as to why and how things became so fraught.
In essence, several years ago some Hawke's Bay locals started collecting information to support a WCO for the Ngaruroro, because it was perhaps the last major back-country North Island river without one in place and, particularly in the upper reaches, they felt it deserved the national recognition and protection a WCO provides.
Then the regional council began its TANK process, pulling together many disparate groups to look at all the rivers feeding the Heretaunga Plains in order to derive a holistic plan change that best reflected the state of play while delivering some environmental bottom lines for protecting water quality and supply in a highly modified and often-stressed environment.
These processes continued with several groups (including tangata whenua) being part of both, without ever amalgamating. Lack of trust in the previous council, together with National's proposed RMA amendments that might see WCOs scrapped, gave impetus and urgency to a WCO application.
Recently that application was "taken over" and finalised by "head office" (in the case of Fish & Game and Forest and Bird) and submitted to Environment Minister Nick Smith.
Despite the HBRC asking it not be progressed because it was too restrictive, Smith advertised it - at which point people had only 20 days to object.
This left locals feeling gazumped by outsiders who lacked understanding of the proposal's effects on the Bay, and indeed even local proponents agree that as writ any order would be draconian in its impacts - though flow limitations the application specifies were apparently sourced from HBRC reports.
HBRC chairman Rex Graham accepts water take for the Heretaunga Plains is over-allocated and will need to reduce by about 10 per cent, regardless.
But this should be managed locally as part of the TANK process, he argues, not as directed from Wellington.
Chasteningly this aspect reflects the huge loss of time energy and money that went into the failed greenfields Ruataniwha scheme when it could have been channelled into a Heretaunga scheme to meet the needs of existing water users.
That hasn't stopped some folk who backed the RWSS from chuckling sourly at seeing different shades of green fighting each other over what's best for the Ngaruroro.
Positively, the wails of protest are already having an effect: people are talking about a compromise whereby the river upstream from Whanawhana - which everyone agrees is still pristine - is covered by a WCO and the lower, modified, reaches are managed under TANK.
Both sides need to approach next week's pre-hearing with this compromise in mind, because the last thing anyone needs now is another inherently flawed concept costing millions in legal fees to argue, for no good result.
• Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's.
