Sweetwater proposal progress - perhaps

Far North mayoral candidate John Carter, who has expressed deep dissatisfaction with the information provided by Far North District Council over its proposal to take water for Kaitaia from the Sweetwater aquifer, described a meeting last week with council representatives, Alan Pattle, from the consulting firm Pattle Delamore, and the land owner as "useful".

Mr Carter said he, council candidate Bryce McDonald and Kaitaia businessman Murray Harrison had been given an unqualified assurance by Mr Pattle that there would be no detrimental effects on the aquifer or any of its existing users, including by way of salt water intrusion, if the council took the volume of water intended.

That assurance was also to be given in writing.

"Bryce, Murray and I also had confirmed that the testing that has been promised by the council since May on bore 1, to be carried out in accordance with the regional council resource consent conditions for bore 2, will be done just as soon as the commercially sensitive land negotiations are completed," Mr Carter said.

"It does seem a pity that the tests can't be done before any more money is spent on land acquisition, but that is the way the council has done the negotiations, so we are stuck with it.

"We were also given an assurance that problems that other major users had experienced with sand intrusion into bores and pumps wouldn't be a problem with the council's proposal because of the screening structure that has been put in place."

It was unfortunate that that information had not been made available much earlier, he added.

"If council communications had been better, a good deal of unsubstantiated speculation would have been avoided," he said.

"It is to be hoped that at some time in the future we will get a better understanding of what the $2.6 million has been spent on, and that we will be advised of any future expenditure as it occurs.

"We all want this project to be successful. It is to be hoped that these assurances and further testing will go a long way to allaying the concerns that so many people have over this issue. Only time will tell."