KEY POINTS:
Central Plains Water (CPW), a farmer-owned company that wants to irrigate 60,000 hectares of the Canterbury Plains, has been told to revisit its proposal after a rival was awarded priority to take water from the Rakaia River.
The High Court decision released this week raised doubts over the future of Environment Canterbury (ECan) resource consent hearings on the CPW scheme.
Drawing water from the Rakaia is part of the $400 million CPW scheme, but the private company has been in dispute with dairying firm Synlait over which should have the primary claim on the river.
Both companies argued that they were entitled to first access to the water if their resource consent applications were granted.
In May, the Environment Court ruled that CPW was the rightful priority holder, but that decision was overturned this week after Synlait appealed in the High Court.
CPW wants to draw up to 40 cubic metres of water a second (cumecs) from the Rakaia and a similar amount from the Waimakariri River to irrigate Canterbury farmland.
Synlait plans to draw 12 cumecs from the Rakaia to spray-irrigate 10,000ha of dairy farms in the Dunsandel-Te Pirita area.
CPW announced immediately it would appeal the High Court judgment.
But commissioners at the ECan hearing into the CPW scheme instructed the company yesterday to prepare an alternative submission outlining how the court ruling would affect its proposals, The Press newspaper reports.
With priority access now stripped from CPW, the commissioners asked the company to prepare a second set of evidence detailing the impact of an amended scheme in which there is no priority access to Rakaia water.
"We need to have before us, and submitters are entitled to understand, what Central Plains' position would be if Synlait ultimately is found to have that priority," commission chairman Philip Milne said.
The consent hearings, expected to take five months, will now adjourn until April 21, with CPW having until April 14 to submit the new evidence to all affected parties.
- NZPA
