Irrigation ban may save flow: Report

Paul Paynter.

Twyford irrigation bans that precipitated last week's tractor protest to remove sitting Hawke's Bay Regional councillors likely prevented the Ngaruroro River from drying up during the last drought, says a report labelled a whitewash by growers.

The HBRC report on drought strategies says the summer of 1982-1983 had periods when "the Ngaruroro River virtually stopped flowing.

"While there is no specific evidence at hand on the cause of the Ngaruroro River drying up, it has not changed physically in the intervening time and so it is possible that the current water management regime that seeks to manage direct takes from waterbodies or control stream depleting groundwater takes, resulted in sustaining some flow in the Ngaruroro where the historical approach did not."

The report said there were 1770 consented water takes from the Heretaunga Aquifer, with 38 tied to a minimum flow in the Ngaruroro River at Fernhill near Twyford.

It rejected claims that during the drought council staff did not engage with growers that approached them: a consent was granted enabling the augmentation of the Raupere Stream using groundwater so irrigation could continue, three consents were issued allowing the transfer of water takes from unrestricted aquifers, water was allowed to be transported off properties to provide survival water and river flow data was made accessible to mobile phones.

Staff had taken "every possible step to provide relief to irrigators during a time of significant stress".

"We were not able to rewrite legislation or consent conditions on the hoof to ignore minimum flows."

Consent conditions had been contested by submitters, including Hawke's Bay Fish and Game, the Department of Conservation, Te Taiwhenua O Heretaunga and seven hapu.

The report said a voluntary drop in water uptake as river levels fell, as had been successfully trialled by the Twyford Irrigator Group (TIG) was a possible model to manage falling river flows as was the progressive stepping down of irrigation takes as river flows dropped (as advocated by TIG).

Global consents - the allocation of water to a group of sharing growers rather than individuals - was also a possible solution to future droughts but grower desire for that option was a prerequisite.

While the augmentation of the Raupere Stream was a long-term possibility, augmenting the Ngaruroro River was not currently possible "due to the scale of storage that would be required".

Two sites for storing water for the river had been identified, which could service existing and new irrigation, but "further consideration of these sites have been suspended while the Ruataniwha project decision-making is occurring".

Paul Paynter, spokesman for tractor organiser Grower Action Group (GAG) and a director of the Yummy Fruit Company, said the report "fails utterly to apportion any blame on the council and its staff for failures".

"The council refused to exercise the very flexibility it identifies in the report to mitigate the damage done by destructive total water bans on fruit trees.

"The chairman of the regional council even had the effrontery on a recent TV programme, The Nation, to claim no trees died, despite admitting he hadn't visited the affected orchards in the six months after the drought."

Growers asking to take water from complying wells to areas under ban were threatened with fines of $600,000 and imprisonment for any breaches of consent conditions, he said.

GAG was now seeking to replace sitting councillors to remove "the culture of arrogance" and provide "sensible water management".