Wairarapa group slams dam

CAMPAIGN: Signs erected by people living in the dam's flood zone.PHOTOS/SUPPLIED

A campaign opposing any proposal to dam the Mangatarere River to store water for irrigation is gathering momentum.

Dam Free Mangatarere is now an incorporated society and the group is calling a public meeting for February 24 in the Carterton Events Centre.

The meeting is being held to explain why they feel a dam on the river would be an environmental disaster.

Mangatarere is one of five sites on the radar of the Wairarapa Water Use Project as a candidate for the irrigation dam but opponents say it is unsuitable and potentially dangerous.

Dam Free Mangatarere chairman Michael Woodcock said the group was not necessarily opposed to an irrigation scheme in Wairarapa per se but was adamantly against the Mangatarere featuring in it.

Mr Woodcock said the project organisers had revealed a dam would be 6km long, holding 30 million cubic metres of water, with each cubic metre weighing a tonne.

"On the Mangatarere that water would be contained within a 61m high dam wall, just rammed earth - not concrete.

"That's a hell of a lot of water and Carterton people should be asking what contingency plans Carterton District Council would have in place should an earthquake take the dam out.

"It is, after all, very close to fault lines."

Mr Woodcock said even "PR spin" being circulated by the water use project team had identified a problem.

"They talk about the minimum flow in the Mangatarere being 160 litres a second but, as it is now, irrigation from the river has to stop when it gets down to 240 litres a second.

"So, according to their spin, the river level would be lower than it is now at the height of a dry season.

"It would look like it does now, all year round.

"We don't want to see the river permanently polluted and wrecked."

What was not so widely known was that to build such a huge dam on the Mangatarere would mean taking eight properties under the Public Works Act.

One family living in the Mangatarere Valley whose property would be seized had lived there for 25 years.

Mr Woodcock said talk of "harvesting" water was misleading.

"It is not a case of harvesting, it's about collection and distribution and schemes like this do not enhance water quality.

"They become a big muddy pool. There is no way waka ama or other recreational activities will be held on the dam, that's all spin."

Mr Woodcock said the social impact of building a dam seemed to have been glossed over.

"Where would all the pipes run, would people be happy to see them cut through their properties?"

The meeting on February 24, which starts at 7pm, will include three guest speakers - Mike Bennett, whose property would be seized under the Public Works Act, Wairarapa Water Use Project director Michael Bassett-Foss, and Dr Mike Joy, a senior lecturer in ecology and environmental science at Massey University.