Work begins on a brand new lake

Five-year-old Ereni Ashley planting a tree next to the reservoir dam site, with help from Anna-Lee Hill and Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones. Photos / Peter de Graaf

Te Rarawa has begun building a reservoir that will protect its Sweetwater farming operation from future droughts and allow pasture to be converted into job-rich horticultural land.

The iwi hosted a ground-breaking ceremony at the site, a natural basin, on Friday, the more than 200 people who attended including Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Andrew Little, who was delighted to see an iwi that had settled its Treaty claims getting on with growing its economic base to help its people.

"It's good to demonstrate that to other iwi up here as well. This will harness greater value of the whenua and help economic revitalisation across the North,'' he said.

Te Rarawa chairman Haami Piripi said the lake was just one of a series of initiatives that included dairying, forestry, and last year's purchase of the adjacent 212ha Bells Produce market garden, with water vital to them all.

Last summer the iwi had provided bore water to Kaitaia when the town supply almost ran dry, but the aquifer was likely to come under increasing pressure, so new water sources were needed.

About 40 people would be employed building the reservoir, which began yesterday, while long-term jobs would be created in everything from water reticulation to horticulture and marketing.

''We are doing this because no one else is doing it for us... It's a fulfillment of the aspirations our ancestors had when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi," Piripi said.

Converting dairy pasture into gardens would also mark a return to traditional use of the land.

June McCabe, who chairs Te Rarawa asset holding company Te Waka Pupuri Pūtea, said the project began two years ago, well before the most recent drought and even before the iwi bought Bells Produce. It was looking at 18 crops, from broccoli to lemons, to determine which were most suitable and most in demand. An initial 100ha would be cropped to provide the cash flow to repay the loan.

Since buying Bells the iwi had been hit by a double whammy of drought and Covid-19, McCabe said, but it had come through the "baptism by fire" with a boost to infrastructure that would secure water for its investment in horticulture.

Jones said the water storage facility was the first of several planned around Northland, with more planned in Kaikohe and the Kaipara, but this was the first to move from the pages of the engineering consultants' books to the hands of those bearing picks and shovels."

The lake will be called Te Tupehau, or 'the wind-blown sands, a reference to the dunes that once dominated the area, a name given by John Paitai on behalf of Ahipara's three marae.

Water will primarily be supplied to the lake from the flood-prone Awanui River during peak flows, with the PGF loan to be used for excavation, installing additional booster pumps and water lines, and upgrading the electricity supply.

"With climate change, the severity and frequency of droughts is expected to increase, and having a reliable water supply will become increasingly important to provide resilience and support rural economies," Jones said.

"Northland already has most of the key elements for a successful, high-value sustainable primary sector. A reliable water supply will help make this a reality."

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The 'Four Pou' approach

Te Rarawa's $4.12 million water storage project at Sweetwater sits comfortably within the iwi's 'Four Pou' principles:

Commercially it will provided greater financial returns per hectare, socially it will create jobs, culturally it supports kaitiakitanga and will restore land to traditional use, and environmentally it will help conserve water and reduce environmental impact.

The lake's 350,000 cubic metre storage capacity is more than double the capacity of the Kauri dam, which formerly provided Kaitaia's water, enough to fill 140 Olympic-sized swimming pools, enabling the conversion of 400ha of pasture to higher-value horticultural production.