Committee approves Waiau plan

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33857, 31 May 1975, Page 2

Committee approves Waiau plan

The water committee of the North

Canterbury Catchment Board has approved a plan which allows up to six times the average volume of the Avon River to be diverted from the Waiau River for irrigation and other uses.

The plan permits the taking of 15 cumecs (Cubic metres a second) above and three cumecs •betow the Waiau’s confluence with the Stanton River, ahout five miles' downstream from Waiau township.

• The proposal must be adopted by the full board before it becomes policy.

Prbvisions in the plan ensure that the taking of water does not allow the river to fall below 60 per cent of its natural flow, as measured at Marble Point, about four miles above the Leslie Hills bridge. The average flow varies from 1 ah October maximum of about 140 cumecs to a February-March minimum of 40 cumecs. (The Avon River’s average flow is three cumecs.).

A meeting of the committee yesterday was told that water now diverted from the Waiau River for irrigation and stock and public use totalled about one cumec. Any foreseeable increase was insignificant, except for a Ministry of Works application to use 11 cumecs to irrigate 15,000 hectares of the Waiau plains. Other possible irrigation areas were 4500 hectares of the Emu plains, 2700 hec-

tares at Spotswood, and 2500 i hectares south of the Pahau River. The committee declined a' request by the Cheviot: ;County Council that a mini-i j mum of 20 cumecs be left lin the river during its lowest flow in Februarvi March. The plan allows . water to be taken during this ; time, provided the river does not fall below 60 per cent of its natural flow, or 15 cumecs, whichever is the I greater. Cabinet report In Wellington yesterday, ithe Minister of the Environ-' i ment (Mrs Tirikatene- • Sullivan) and the Minister of Works (Mr Connelly), affirmed that all environmental issues associated with the Waiau plains irrigation scheme would be thoroughly considered by the Government before it finally approved the proposal. The final report to the Cabinet works committee would cover all aspects of the development — engineering, economic, environmental, scientific, and sociological — the Minister said.

Mr Connelly said that the granting of a Crown water right did not in any way commit the Government to proceeding with the scheme, but was a vital step in its promotion.