Concern expressed over Ruataniwha figures

VERDANT VALLEY: The site of the proposed Ruataniwha Dam, at the upper end of Makaroro River. PHOTO/FILE

Predicted costings over water provided by the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme have been a source for doubt for the Hawke's Bay Regional Council chair.

In November, the regional council commissioned a review of the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme (RWSS) in November to look at the key legal, financial, economic, engineering and environmental elements.

This review was released to the public, and received by the council at a meeting earlier this week.

At the meeting, regional council chair Rex Graham expressed concern the figure conveyed by the council per cubic metre of water under the scheme - of $1.45 - compared to on farm storage - a figure of $5 - was "misleading".

This was because the scheme figure did not include getting the water to the farm's front gate - raising the price to $3.10 per cubic metre.

Yesterday council group strategic development manager James Palmer clarified this was not the case.

The dam only costs for the storage volume of 90Mm3 were $1.45 per cubic metre of water stored, under the large scale RWSS. In comparison the on farm scale would be $5 per cubic metre of water stored.

However the total project comparative capital costs for a 90Mm3 storage scheme were vastly different for a large scale RWSS - $328,750,000 - and on farm scale - $544,000,000.

These total costs then gave a "total dam and distribution comparative cost per cubic metre of water stored" as $3.65 for large scale, and $6.04 for on farm scale.

However Mr Graham stood by his sentiment expressed in the meeting that Ruataniwha would not be comparatively cheaper than on farm storage.

"They've been going on about how its cheaper to build a dam because its large, well of course if you do economies of scale but its miles away from the farm," he said.

"The cost of Ruataniwha and farm storage is the same in my view."

When ask if he thought the scheme would be economically beneficial those who had signed on, compared to having their own on-farm storage, Mr Graham said he thought "it'd be the same".

"Because the thing about on farm storage is it goes onto their balance sheet as an asset, it increases the value of the asset, whereas they don't do that with Ruataniwha."

Another hot-button topic during the meeting was that the nitrogen (Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen or DIN) limits in all Tukituki sub-catchments by 2030 (as required by the Tukituki Plan) was highly improbable and may even be impossible.

The review identified that the current Tukituki plan had a number of serious deficiencies which meant the plan would struggle to deliver lower nitrogen levels with or without the scheme.

The Environmental Defence Society and Fish and Game had jointly offered to co-operate with the council in getting an Environment Court ruling on ambiguities in the consent condition for the RWSS.

These were said to concern the nitrogen limits in the consent conditions set by the Board of Inquiry.

During the meeting councillor Tom Belford had suggested joining with these organisations to seek a declarative ruling from the Environment Court regarding the legal status of the board of inquiry's DIN limit.

However Mr Palmer had stated reaching the DIN limit of 0.8 by 2030 was for the council to meet, not the RWSS.

The Board of Inquiry had said that as water quality science advanced, a different DIN limit might emerge as a more appropriate level.

"In the meantime the Board sees the DIN limit of 0.8mg/l as a pragmatic level that appropriately protects ecological health while enabling more intensive land use."

Mr Palmer advised council he would return with advice on the merits of a court declaration, but noted there were wider issues with the plan than just the matters raised by the lobby groups.

This meant it could be more prudent to go straight to a plan change.