Our new council gave the green light for very expensive lawyers to attempt to undermine our national conservation values in the name of the dam and, don't forget, the last CEO was on an eye watering wage of more than $7000 per week.
$20 million has been spent promoting a scheme which, if it goes ahead, will further pollute the Tukituki.
If the dam goes ahead another $60million gets spent plus another $80million borrowed by HBRC investment company to pay the dividends necessary in the 20 years before its supposed to take to make a real profit - risky!
The dam is about the expansion of intensive farming and that type of farming leaches pollutants into our water, so why have more if you want safe rivers.
Many say intensive farming is having negative impacts on our environment.
Who says that ?
Well the OECD says that , the scientist who advises the PM says that. The scientist who advises Parliament says that.
Every water scientist in NZ either says that or doesn't disagree.
Nick Smith no longer says it isn't so and nor does that small but squeaky wheel, Federated Farmers.
What the Feds try to do is deflect the finger strongly pointed at intensive farming and suggest there is a urban/country divide where so called townies are unfairly picking on all farmers.
This is absolute rubbish as most large intensive farms are, or soon will be, owned by corporate cowboys who live in cities, don't wear gumboots or work horrendous hours in often very challenging conditions - all for a minimum wage with no penal rates.
They have serfs to do all that. They also take the lion's share of the water, leaving little for anybody else.
The environmental problems of dry stock farming are minor compared to intensive farming and some urban practices.
Throwing money at a problem and not fixing the cause is just crazy.
If we don't have a moratorium on intensive farming and put the current operations under the microscope then there little hope of saving the Tukituki.
The situation is like asking for money for a new fire engine to fight summer fires and at the same time giving kids some petrol and matches and telling them to bugger off and play in the long grass
Some people will say that flushing flows will see it right.
Flushing flows are an admittance that the intensive farms pollute.
It is unlikely that they would move the problem very far or remove the river slime from the Tukituki.
For flushing flows to work all the way down the Tukituki they would have to send a tsunami down the river.
That mass of water would have to be paid for by someone, mostly likely all of Hawke's Bay's ratepayers .
That much water suddenly hurtling down the river in summer would no doubt catch someone unaware and endanger their life.
On top of that, where would the pollutants end up - in the sea.
IS not the Hawke's Bay Regional Council also responsible for our coastal environment?
Many non-intensive farms in CHB want the dam so they can attempt to drought-proof their farms and that is understandable, but their water takes alone are not enough to make the dam economical to build.
This is the Catch 22. For the dam to have any hope of being economical, it has to have the big water users, that is the more intensive farms and the environmental problems that go with them.
This whole issue has always been about money or the environment.
No matter what the outcome of the HBRC's inhouse review, there is no escaping it.
There is no win/win.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council has to say no to pollution, no to the dam, save that money and spend it where it's needed.
Gren Christie lives in Central Hawke's Bay and was part of the original Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme Stakeholders group