Plan Change 6 was designed to work in tandem with the RWSS, the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme. The 8 million cubes would come from the dam which was to be operational before 2018.
This would have safeguarded the irrigators and allowed part two of plan Change 6 to come in to operation in 2021 when another 8 million cubic metres of water must be added to the river flow.
Sixteen million cubic metres in total. No dam. No irrigation. The results for CHB will be catastrophic. When Plan Change 6 is applied to the rest of Hawke's Bay, life will become very interesting.
In severe drought years like 1915, 1936, 1945, 1982, 1989, 1992, 1998, 2006/7/8 and given the predicted and actual results of global warming, agriculture will become virtually impossible.
The dam cannot possibly be built by 2018 and if the present council plus Greenpeace, Forest and Bird, Fish and Game and all the other space cadets have their way, it never will be. Central Hawke's Bay will die a slow lingering death.
The last five years on planet Earth have been the hottest since records began and the 20 year drought is now due every five years.
Even without the irrigators, the lower Tukituki will be a low slow weedy trickle in most years. So there will be no winners. The biggest losers will be our children and grandchildren who no doubt will curse us roundly for our lack of foresight, courage and vision.
There is a provision in the plan for ''Emergency Water" in times of critical shortage and that's where the story gets interesting. Four years ago all hell broke loose when the council shut down irrigators in Twyford during a dry spell. Protesters on tractors took to the streets.
In the 2013 elections they successfully put up four candidates funded largely by major apple growers Bostock, Apatu and Crasborne. Council bent the rules to create "Emergency Water" for them for use in extreme drought.
The four councillors were re-elected in October and the addition of Bailey from Napier gave them the power to stop the dam and create the looming crisis on a vast scale in CHB. The Saviours of Twyford have sharpened the axe about to fall on Ruataniwha. A disaster that emergency water has no hope of alleviating.
Their response to the issue that got the tractors rolling through Hastings and got them elected has been illuminating.
Chairman Rex Graham immediately shot the messenger. Dr Andy Pearce, chairman of the dam company HBRIC, was sacked. Andrew Newman, the CEO of the company, is next in Rex's sights.
This may well lead to a constructive dismissal case of epic proportions if Newman is tempted to take council to the cleaners. No reason was been given for Pearce's departure.
There was no formal hearing or process by council and a number of the councillors were neither consulted or informed of the decision.
Shareholders can sack a director for no reason. That's perfectly legal. Sacking an employee is an entirely different matter. Newman is being targeted because he was the chief Mushroom Keeper who "starved councillors of information for three years", as chairman Rex put it. If this was a fact, the dismissal of both men would be justified. But there is absolutely no evidence that the claims of secrecy and withheld information are true.
Pearce says that nothing material has ever been withheld and HBRIC has had no approach from the new council to bring in an investigator to seek hidden files full of secret information.
The mushrooms, it seems, made it all up. But here's the really barmy bit. The mushrooms proposed "The Right dam" in November 2014. It's on the HBRC website and it is exactly the same dam as the one they now oppose. On July 8 this year councillors Barker and Beaven voted for the dam when they approved a paper presented by Pearce called "The Case for the RWSS is Compelling".
That's also on the website. Asked when and why the Famous Four changed their minds and condemned CHB to oblivion, none could or would explain.
The suspicious observer suspects that for some unknown reason their allegiance lies with the Twyford orchardists rather than the wider community.
That will be clarified on December 10 when candidates submit their election expenses to the returning officer. The smart money in the dusty countryside is betting that a lot of those returns come up smelling of apples.
