Poroti locals at the Kauritutahi Stream, from left, Maungatapere Water Company chair Mark Croucher and lifestyle block farmer Jim Hawthorn. Photo / Tania Whyte
01st September 2023 Photo Tania Whyte
Poroti locals at the Kauritutahi Stream, from left, Maungatapere Water Company chair Mark Croucher and lifestyle block farmer Jim Hawthorn. Photo / Tania Whyte
01st September 2023 Photo Tania Whyte
Whangārei West’s $40 million Maungatapere Water Company leader is hitting out at Northland Regional Council (NRC) over a new Poroti horticultural water take consent.
Maungatapere Water Company (MWC) chair Mark Croucher said the August 19 consent was inconsistent on the council’s part, as the co-operative had been set up on the basis that alternate irrigation water take consents would not be issued inside its 1500ha rohe (area), where the water co-operative could provide the reticulated resource.
Northland Regional Council (NRC) has granted an orchardist consent to take water from Poroti’s Kauritutahi Stream. The property is in the irrigator’s rohe, is connected to the reticulated scheme and has three MWC shares, entitling it to scheme water.
Croucher said the consent was massive, and its issuing illustrated how high NRC staff turnover risked the loss of institutional knowledge critical to the retention of long-term information – in this case, the foundation principles on which the shareholder-owned co-operative MWC scheme was set up with NRC’s Northland Catchment Commission predecessor. It was built in the 1980s and started operating in 1991.
NRC consents manager Stuart Savill said in response the scheme’s establishment in commission times had been pre the Resource Management Act (RMA) which now underpinned the council’s consenting process and before the NRC was set up.
He said since MWC’s establishment, there had been opportunities to take part in public consultation processes during the development of Northland’s Proposed Regional Plan and operative Regional Water and Soil Plan, which both had key roles in guiding NRC’s water take consenting.
Croucher and others said the new consent should have been publicly notified.
Savill said public notification had not been sought for the consent. There were no special circumstances around the consent application that meant the NRC decided it should be.
He said the high-water flow take consent had been considered under a specific Proposed Regional Plan rule.
“The purpose of this rule is to allow a person to take water at high flows with very minimal adverse effects on both aquatic ecosystem health and other users,” Savill said.
NRC had considered flow rates and intake volumes and as a result “considered that such a take was unlikely to have very measurable adverse effects on the habitat and ecological values of the stream”.
Kauritutahi Stream on the first day of spring this year Photo / Tania Whyte
Local Democracy Reporting Northland approached one of the Poroti kiwifruit property owners - who did not wish to be named nor to name the company involved in the orchard - for comment.
He said the company had gone through the NRC resource consent process and followed all required steps.
The Poroti property owner said the high-flow consent was not for the year-round take that was traditionally more common in the horticulture sector. It was specifically angled towards water harvesting only when the stream was in flood. This meant it could only be taken during winter or major Cyclone Gabrielle-type weather events.
He said he did not consider the take to be large, because of its consent conditions.
Harvested Kauritutahi Stream water would be stored in a reservoir on the property, predominantly for irrigation, but also for frost protection if needed.
He said the stream would not be the new orchard’s primary water source. It would come after runoff from kiwifruit plastic houses then Whatitiri Mountain stormwater that naturally flowed onto the property.
He estimated up to about 45,000 cubic metres of Kauritutahi Stream water would be taken annually, depending on the weather.
The property owner said the company had researched its best water supply options, selecting the stream source for reasons headed by cost and supply security. Security concerns included potentially limited scheme water supply during dry weather water shortages.
MWC’s pricing and supply structure were not the best fit for the property’s strong water use efficiency goals.
He said MWC’s water was among the most expensive in New Zealand.
Croucher said in response MWC’s charges were realistic, given its infrastructure and pumping costs
“We run our co-operative scheme to cover the cost of operation, maintenance and the future. We’re not doing it for shareholders to profit in terms of getting the same types of return on capital a business expects.”
Maungatapere Water Company chair Mark Croucher at the co-operative’s Poroti Springs pumping station Photo / Tania Whyte
Croucher said the new consent could become the thin edge of the wedge, should NRC issue more non-scheme consents in the co-operative’s rohe, potentially threatening MWC’s economic future.
“If everybody starts to jump on the bandwagon and gets new water take consents, why was the scheme built?” Croucher said.
Croucher said it was concerning the new consent’s monitoring would be done at a downstream NRC site on the Waipao Stream, 8km from the Kauritutahi Stream intake, thereby diluting NRC’s ability to accurately measure water flow and dissolved oxygen impacts.
Whatitiri Resource Management Unit (WRMU) co-ordinator Millan Ruka said he was still strongly opposed to the consent.
“It adds more pressure on a dwindling resource,” Ruka said.
The Poroti kiwifruit orchardist said Ruka had been invited onto the property during the resource consent application process.
Neighbouring Poroti lifestyle block farmer Jim Hawthorn said NRC had in 2000 been against him taking Kauritutahi Stream water for irrigating avocados.
