Company wants to tap into district's aquifer

Liz Lambert says there are no secrets. Photo/File

About 31 water bores would be drilled in Central Hawke's Bay under a proposal by Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Company to tap into the district's aquifer as part of the Ruataniwha water storage scheme.

It emerged last week that HBRIC, the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's investment company, is seeking resource consent to take significant volumes of groundwater in the Tukituki catchment as part of its plans for the Ruataniwha dam and irrigation scheme.

The company has applied the council for consent to take up to 15 million cubic metres of groundwater per year from the catchment's aquifer.

The underground water would be used to extend the capacity of the irrigation scheme, through which about 100 million cu m of water a year would be available as a result of building a dam on the Makaroro River.

In a decision granting consent for the dam, a board of inquiry ruled the amount of groundwater permitted to be taken from the Ruataniwha aquifer could be increased from the current level of 28.5 million cu m per year to 43.5 million cu m per year. HBRIC is applying for permission to take all the additionally available water. "There will be a range of beneficial effects associated with the proposed groundwater take, particularly in terms of facilitating an increase in the productive potential of the land resource within the Ruataniwha Plains," the company said in its resource consent application, filed in May.

The application said HBRIC anticipated drilling about 31 bores at a depth of up to 80 metres.

"The 15 million [cu m/year] of water taken from the Ruataniwha Aquifer will be used for irrigation purposes (primarily) within the general location of the bores from which the water is taken instead of utilising stored water taken from the Makaroro Dam. This will reduce the amount of infrastructure (and associated costs) that would otherwise be required as part of the RWSS associated with the distribution of water."

Last week, regional councillor Rick Barker asked for reports on the application from council staff and HBRIC, saying he was "intrigued and surprised" to hear about it from outside sources.

Council chief executive Liz Lambert said the application had not been kept secret, and had been discussed openly with the Ruataniwha Water Users Group before and after it was lodged.

Councillor Tom Belford said in a blog the groundwater application was an example of the "failed transparency" associated with the Ruataniwha project.

He described it as "pre-empting all other potential users of additional aquifer water".

HBRIC is due to update councillors on the $275 million Ruataniwha scheme at a council meeting next week.

Councillors voted last month to invest up to $80 million in the scheme provided a number of conditions are met, including that HBRIC secures sufficient funding for the project and signs initial contracts with irrigators prepared to take at least 40 million cum of water a year.