Rex Graham: Water Conservation Order must be opposed

Hawke's Bay Regional Council Chair Rex Graham

When I was elected to the Hawke's Bay Regional Council last year, it was with the goal of helping to ensure our rivers and streams are protected and that is still at the core of everything I do as chairman.

I also have a responsibility to ensure that our economy is supported and remains strong to protect the jobs and families in our region.

This week, council voted unanimously to oppose the Water Conservation Order (WCO) application for the Ngaruroro and Clive Rivers. To some this may sound at odds to protecting our rivers and streams but we all need to consider the threats and risks to our region embedded in the detail of this application.

A special tribunal will consider the Water Conservation Order application and we need to make a strong stand to ensure the tribunal understands the consequences of imposing such an order. We estimate this process will cost the HBRC $650,000 which is unbudgeted and this doesn't count for the costs of the applicants or the special tribunal.

I am extremely disappointed that a group of HB residents have unilaterally charged off with their own agenda, promoting the WCO, despite being part of the community process that is dealing with the issues of how we use our water resources for the benefit of all. Their actions will cause divisions in our community that will take years to mend.

The Water Conservation Order hugely conflicts with the work of the TANK group, which is reviewing the way land and water resources are managed in the Greater Heretaunga and Ahuriri area. TANK encompasses the Tutaekuri, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro and Karamu catchments (TANK), plus the Heretaunga Plains aquifer system.

This community group is making great progress in helping to develop a plan change that will reflect our community's values. TANK was to make recommendations to the Regional Planning Committee on the future use of land and water resources in the Greater Heretaunga and Ahuriri area and that will form the basis of a plan change. I am advised that TANK may not even survive this WCO action as we simply don't have the resources to fund and manage both processes.

If this happens four years of hard work from our TANK community, much of it voluntary, will go down the drain.

The WCO process also cuts entirely across the functions and role of the Regional Planning Committee, which is a joint committee of councillors and tangata whenua, which contributes to planning for the use of natural resources and environmental outcomes in the region. This committee has been held up nationally as leading the way in the management of natural resources in New Zealand.

Our council simply cannot and will not sit on the fence on such an important matter for our region. The Water Conservation Order as it is written would decimate horticulture on the Heretaunga Plains and we can't let that happen.

None of us can underestimate the devastating consequences to our region's economy if the WCO is implemented.

The WCO would place constraints on groundwater takes during dry summer months that are dramatically more severe than are being contemplated by TANK.

Modelling shows in the last 8 years there were an average of 10 irrigation ban days per year. But under this order there would be an average of 27 days and in a dry year there could be upwards of 90 irrigation ban days, which is the majority of the growing season. Orchard trees would die and nobody would plant any crops with such a risk.

Primary production is at the heart of the Hawke's Bay economy and many of our jobs depend on it and the council owes it to its community to vigorously oppose this order.
What we must do is develop a balance between our farming and our environment and that is exactly what TANK is trying to do. To have a community where our industry thrives while being in harmony with our environment especially our rivers and streams.

If this WCO is accepted as written it will be the death knell to our region.

Rex Graham is chair of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council. All opinions are the writer's and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.