KEY POINTS:
Two major schemes proposing to take water from the Waitaki River catchment will be publicly notified this weekend.
Canterbury regional council Environment Canterbury (ECan) is seeking public submissions on Meridian Energy's north bank hydro tunnel proposal and the South Canterbury Irrigation Trust's Hunter Downs plan that would irrigate 40,000 hectares of land north of the Waitaki and adjacent to the coast.
Meridian proposes to take water from Lake Waitaki immediately upstream of the Waitaki Dam and tunnel it for hydroelectric power generation. The irrigation trust wants to take water from downstream of the dam.
ECan regulation director Mike Freeman said people wanting to make submissions on the two schemes would have 20 working days until June 1, but ECan would consider requests to extend the submission period.
A decision on which other consent applications would be publicly notified was expected before the end of May.
"There are a number of other consent applications that are likely to proceed to a notified hearing at the same time as these two schemes, but at this stage the decision on which of the 220 consents being processed will be notified is still being made," Dr Freeman said.
The Hunter Downs and north bank tunnel schemes both propose that the Waitaki River flow goes below the 150 cubic metres per second minimum specified in the Waitaki Catchment Water Allocation Regional Plan.
Dr Freeman said whether or not this would be allowed might affect the outcome for the other consents also wanting to use Waitaki water "hence the need to hear all notified applications as a group".
Hearings for notified consent applications are expected to begin in August and run until the end of the year.
- NZPA
