Conservation works cut proposed

Press, 25 February 1980, Page 10

Conservation works cut proposed

Development work by local authorities may be severly curtailed if the Government enforces a directive limiting expenditure on all water and soil works that give a financial return of less than 15 per cent. The directive was strongly criticised at a meeting of the Water and Soil 1 Conservation Authority. Schemes with an internal’rate of. return less than. 15 per cent could only commence with approval, from the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon), the ■ meeting heard.

The Director of Water and Soil Conservation (Mr A. W. Gibson) said that many of the projects de-

signed to protect soil, and water reserves were unable to meet this “stringent short-term • economic deadline.” The high rate of return would disadvantage the longer-term benefits which accrue from big schemes for river control and flood prevention, big irrigation schemes, and soilconservation works, Mr Gibson said. “Fifteen per cent is a measure of a project’s economic profitability, - but it should not be used to measure priorities,” he said. - The authority acknowledged the shortage . of. funds for works and the heed to control demand, but members agreed with Dr N. A. Algar when he said

that the proposal was “totally unacceptable.” • . Dr Algar said that the authority should object to “this . . short-sighted, narrow-minded, bureau-, cratic method of rationing funds.” ' . ' Dr W. R. Holmes, chairman of the- North Canterbury Catchment Board, said that if the authority were to implement the 15 per cent economic criterior the aims for which it was established would be abandoned and its job would simply become that of a development body. “If economic issues were the only criteria for evaluating a scheme’s worth, social and environmental matters would no longer, be given consideration,” Dr Holmes said. At a later meeting with the Associate Minister of Finance (Mr Quigley) and the Minister of Works and Development (Mr W. L. Young), members had .left with a better appreciation .of the problems, he said. Dr Holmes said that Mr Quigley had agreed to consider the criteria again and evaluate the implications of the 15 per cent financial .return. ~ ... . . ..

“If this policy was to persist, long-term benefits would give way to short-term expediency,” he said. “As an attempt to restrain demand, it is perhaps not very well thought out. “If this attitude pervaded all Government expenditure, areas such as health, national parks, and social welfare would suffer similar ' cuts.” . The financial implications of incentives promised in the Government’s election manifesto had finally “come home to roost,” Dr Holmes said. ' ■ , The Government had found that development plans proposed for incentive support were costing more money than it was? prepared to spend. The directive to reduce expenditure would not affect works that the North Canterbury Catchment Board was already committed to, he said. The biggest cut would be in investigative work, because the board would not consider spending big sums to investigate schemes unless they were certain to proceed. Flood protection, erosion control, and coastal works usually returned less than 15 per cent, and would not be funded unless Mr Muldoon was satisfied they warranted special consideration. Dr Holmes said that the use of the criterion for funding schemes would mean that rural water supply schemes, drainage schemes and small horticultural irrigation schemes would be almost the only ones promoted.