Soil and water battle looming

Press, 15 July 1976, Page 5

Soil and water battle looming

By OLIVER RIDDELL A major battle is looming between the pro-management and the pro-conservation factions involved in water and soil affairs, a battle which will probably last several years.

The Minister of Works and Development (Mr W. L. Young) has already announced his intention to proceed with the redrafting of water and soil legislation, to consolidate the various relevant acts into one water and soil act, and that this redrafted legislation would receive priority in the 1977 parliamentary session. However, he conceded that this target might not be met. In 1973, a legislation review committee was appointed to consider all existing laws in the field, identify areas that could be improved or consolidated, and make recommendations. This committee’s report is now in the hands of its parent body—the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority—which is considering it. A copy was sent to the Minister, who directed that confidential copies be sent to a wide range of interested parties, including local bodies, catchment authorities. Government departments, and other parties officially involved in water and soil management. The Minister also had a synopsis of this report prepared for the general public. Now the authority is considering its own final recommendations to the Minister, which may not include all the committee’s recommendations, and which may include some extra ones of its own.

Meanwhile, the general public may not have gleaned from the Minister’s synopsis just how revolutionary some of the committee’s recommendatinos are. It is understood that the committee itself was deeply divided on some aspects of its report, and that these divisions are likely to be reflected both on the authority, and between interested parteis. For example, recommendation No. 22 of the committee’s report says that. “As a fundamental principle in considering the membership of any future national body, the complete independence of its members should be emphasised,

so that no member shall represent any sectional or regional interest.” Just who should be debarred as representing any “sectional or regional interest” is not immediately clear. Under the present legislation it would presumably debar anyone representing an interested party creating, or opposing the creation of waste. As the present authority is an amalgam of sectional interests. and indeed was established to provide a forum on which the major sectional interest could meet and thrash out their problems, this recommendation reverses the present system. It is understood that many of the sectional interests represented on the authority are far from happy with this recommendation to strip their power from them, or with the committee’s recommendations on the composition of the authority. They recommended the establishment of a water and soil authority, with two major committees whose members would be appointed by the authority. The authority would compromise the Minister of Works (chairman), three members appointed by the Minister, after consultation with the Catchment Authorities Association, from a panel of five nominations, one person appointed for knowledge of soil conservation, river control and land drainage, and one person appointed for knowledge of the conservation, allocation, and quality of water resources. Under this authority would sit a soil conservation, river control and drainage committee, and a water resources management committee.

By taking the logical step of dividing the present authority’s two main functions so that they would be handled by two separate committees, effective control of both would pass from the widely representative group now on the authority, including the sectional interests to the very small group envisaged for the new authority. Other very contentious recommendations are that the new authority should extend its mandate from water to land as well, in some situations, and that water classification be on a regional basis rather than a national one. Both these will have tremendous repercussions over a wide field, and must further slow down resolution of the matter.

These, and other, import-

ant recommendations are made somewhat more evident in the committee’s lengthy report than in the Minister’s short synopsis. Although the report is still a confidential document, the time must come when in fairness to all parties, whether officially involved or not, it will have to be released.

Already, unofficial parties such as local acclimatisation societies are beginning to voice their concern that they have not seen the report, have not been a party to any discussions, and have not been consulted about their own interests in the field. It is understood that the final recommendations of the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority to the Minister for redrafted legislation will be made public before the legislation itself is introduced next year, but as this document need not include all the committee’s recommendations, it will be a pity if it is not published too.

The director of the water and soil division of the Ministry of Works (Mr A. W. Gibson) said it was “almost certain” that the legislation would go before a s,elect committee, so public comment could be made there. But if the more contentious points in the committee’s report have not been resolved by then, then the select committee could be in for a long and difficult hearing.