Storing water our top priority

The Wairarapa Water summit, hosted in Masterton on Tuesday, touches on that most primitive of concepts - the collection and stockpiling of water.

WE CONSTANTLY marvel at the sophistication of 21st century society and the cleverness of our science and computer technology.

Yet the basic principles that still sustain our super-clever society haven't changed much in 200,000 years.

The human race developed techniques to concentrate food sources, and concentrate water to support it. It's a basic circle: water and food means a population growth, which means a need for more water and food.

The Wairarapa Water summit, hosted in Masterton on Tuesday, touches on that most primitive of concepts - the collection and stockpiling of water.

We all have a natural instinct to do it, even on a personal level. Mine is on a laughably small scale, in trying to figure out how my garden will survive another hot summer, trying to keep my drought-prone rewarewa alive, and reminding myself for the umpteenth time to start an emergency supply of water in case of an earthquake.

But we're all aware of unfathomable amounts of water flowing (just) under the Waihenga Bridge after heavy rain in the Tararuas. Come the summer we think: why haven't we made better use of that water?

Building dams to create storage lakes is such a beautifully instinctive and natural thing to do. Naturally, it's not an overnight concept. It's a significant engineering feat and there are niceties like flooding land people own, or destruction of heritage sites. But the gains could be huge.

My old physics teacher used to talk about the "potential energy" of water behind a dam, but perhaps that should just be "potential". Yesterday's Times-Age discussed the example of a South Canterbury grower and food processor who founded a community-funded water storage scheme. Only 4 per cent of the total land watered was for vegetables and produce (the rest went to stock farming) but the resulting profits were higher than sheep, beef and dairy.

I've yet to experience a drought in Wairarapa, but I'm sure my instincts will be the same as any farmer: let's get storing all that Tararua water.