Water 'gold rush' predicted

Jim Anderton (right) and David Benson-Pope announce the consultation process on water management. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Government moves to improve the sustainable use of fresh water may trigger a "gold rush" for water consents, says the Fish and Game environmental lobby.

"There's a danger of a water rush over the next 12 to 18 months," said Fish and Game director Bryce Johnson, who has had a key role in battling the farming sector over its "take" from rural waterways and the degradation of water quality from farm run-off.

"There's already been a rush in Canterbury, because the available resource is over-allocated in some areas. Water is like gold these days.

"Some people in Canterbury have called for a moratorium on issuing further resource consents for the next 35 years until we know what's happening.

"A key issue is whether the Government will provide scope to claw back water where it has been over-allocated."

Mr Johnson said that without a clawback, there was a danger of farmers and other land-users seeking resource consents, knowing that the Government was making changes which were likely to make it easier to sell any consents surplus to their own requirements.

The Government yesterday signalled that it plans to take a bigger role in the protection and distribution of fresh water, and that some conventions - such as first-in, first-served for water resource consents - may be abolished.

Agriculture and Forestry Minister Jim Anderton and Environment Minister David Benson-Pope said that over the next 11 months they would develop a strategic approach to managing valuable fresh water resources.

"The days of taking the unlimited use of water for granted are over," Mr Anderton said yesterday.

"We need to ensure our fresh water is used efficiently".

Lowland water pollution - and increasing incidence in some regions of diseases which cause diarrhoea, including cryptosporidium and salmonella - have been blamed on urine and faeces from dairy cows.

Green Party environment spokesman, Nandor Tanczos, said last night that rather than "considering the potential value" of including pollution in the national policy statement, the issue should be a basic part of water allocation.

"It's a no-brainer," he said. A commitment to water quality and pollution control should be put in the national policy statement to set the rules for councils. And the new environment standards should provide for measuring contamination by phosphorous and nitrogen from intensive farming.

Canterbury regional council chairman Sir Kerry Burke, who chairs a water sub-committee in a national grouping of councillors, the regional affairs committee, said his council was already working on recovering from consent-holders the cost of managing water.

Mr Johnson said it was important the Government wanted farmers to take greater responsibility for their effects on the environment.

Nationally, farm animals produced effluent equivalent to a population of 150 million people.

"They are really challenging the agriculture sector to come back and say why they shouldn't be made responsible for its adverse effects," he said.

Federated Farmers' spokesman Hugh Ritchie said the organisation would oppose any new policies on water that reduced productivity and the viability of farming.


Water use - the steps ahead

* A report to be completed next February will advise on improving transfers of water consents, allowing regional councils to recover the cost of water management, and on setting minimum flows for water bodies.

* Next March a group of council representatives and other parties will produce a draft national policy that will effectively dictate how councils allocate water.

* It will advise on how councils can manage "over-allocated" catchments, and on the potential value of a national policy statement on nutrients and microbial contaminants and sediment.

- NZPA