Marlborough Water Region

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31784, 14 September 1968, Page 21

Marlborough Water Region

That Awatere County, the Sounds. Dashwood and Picton borough be added to the Marlborough Water Region will be recommended to the Local Government Commission by the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority.

The authority considered at its September meeting applications from Picton borough and Marlborough and Awatere counties concerning compliance with the requirements of the Water and Soil Conservation Act, 1967. Picton said it would prefer to be a water region on its own, but as this request was unlikely to get approval it would therefore want to be included in the Marlborough Catchment Board's water region for water control purposes only. The Awatere County Council applied to be a regional water board for the whole county, and Marlborough County Council applied for the Dashwood and Sounds areas to be included in the Marlborough Catchment Board’s water region for water control purposes only. The Marlborough Catchment Board supported the Marlborough County and Picton applications. On the Awatere application the board said it considered it could probably administer the county area more efficiently but that it had no intention of doing anything which might be seen as forcing the county to join the board’s water region.

A report from the Ministry of Works resident engineer at Nelson said that the financial and engineering resources of Awatere could prevent it carrying out effectively the wide functions of a regional water board. The Director of Water and Soil Conservation, Mr N. C. McLeod, told the authority there seemed no likelihood at present of persuading the

three local authorities to accept for the four areas full catchment control as derived from the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act The Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council recommended, therefore, that the four areas be joined to the catchment board’s district, with the board’s powers restricted to those conferred by the Water and Soil Conservation Act.

The authority agreed and decided to recommend accordingly to the Local Government Commission.