Canterbury’s liquidity problem Water rationing: Is that a taste of things to come?

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 15

Canterbury’s liquidity problem Water rationing: Is that a taste of things to come?

Recent publicity about illegal water users has prompted a flood of water right applications to the North Canterbury Catchment Board, many from farmers who have sunk new bores during the drought, but also from others with guilty consciences. A board officer said that at one stage the office was sounding like a confessional. Last month, board members considered 29 routine applications but next month they will have to deal with a record estimated 200 applications.

DERRICK ROONEY reports on the procedures involved.

A high percentage of Canterbury's water users — variously estimated between 20 and 50 per cent — is drawing from the natural supplies without benefit of official permission, but that does not mean that up to half of Canterbury's irrigators are wilfully breaking the law. according to the chief executive officer of the North Canterbury Catchment Board (Mr Ray Wood).

Many of the water-rights breaches are apparently of a technical nature.

According to Mr Wood, the board has been ''really pushed" with inquiries, mostly from farmers, since the statement that up. to 50 per cent of the users had no water right was made at a meeting of the board's resources committee last month.

In some cases, the board's staff have been able to reassure domestic users that they are breaking no statute or by-law by taking water for household use. In many other cases, it has been found that the breaches were of a procedural nature. Many of the latter involve farms which have changed hands in the last few years. Though a water right remains with a property when there is a change of'ownership. it is not registered against the title. Frequently, according to Mr Wood, a buyer s solicitor fails to apply for the transfer of a water right. He may not even know that it exists' The seller may mention the water right to the buyer, but they may not know’ that a transfer is necessary. Evidence of this. Mr Wood says, is that applications for the transfer of a water right often come in a long, long time after a property has changed hands. Sometimes the right simply lapses — a situation of which the new owner, having been told by his predecessor that there is a water right, is blissfully unaware.

To get himself back on the right side of the law a farmer in such a position must file a fresh application for a right, giving reasons why it should be granted, and must then wait while the board advertises for objections. Farmers whose water rights have lapsed, either because they have overlooked the expiry date or have failed to realise that the right is not automatically renewed, are in the same position.

The board feels deeper concern about cases where water is being used but. for whatever reason, no water right has been obtained.

"Such users of water have no protection under the law and are committing an offence for which they may be prosecuted. Obviously it is also difficult for the board in its planning and management of water resources to make proper provision for users who are not known." Mr Wood said.

Who needs a water right, anyway? Broadly, any' user — an individual, a company, a local body, or any other organisation — who extracts from, diverts, dams, or discharges into any natural water, be it above or below ground, must obtain a right to do so from the regional water authority. But there are exceptions. Farmers may take water for their stock. Firefighters may take water.

Domestic users may also take water without obtaining a right, but they may use it for household purposes only (this includes watering a garden} — thus a rural resident may take water without a permit to provide a'household supply or to water the vegetables and shrubs around the homestead, but may not spray any of the water on to paddocks. However. though the householder requires no water right he must, if he wishes to sink a

well, obtain a well permit from the board. The use of water extracted from a household well for commercial purposes is prohibited. Thus in a rural township residents are free to use water but businesses, such as the local pub, may have to obtain a water right'. The basis of the rights system is that water cannot be owned. A farmer may own the bed of a river or stream which flows through his property, and may deny the public access to it, but he cannot own the water. Similarly, he can have no claim of title to underground water or to water in natural lakes and ponds. The law does, however, provide for the issuing by regional water authorities, usually catchment boards, of rights to use water.

When a farmer wants water for irrigation his first step is to make a written application to the authority. When the water is to be

drawn from a well, application must also be made for a well, which is required for all wells.

The issuing authority then advertises the water-right application in the Saturdaypublic notices column of the daily newspapers, and calls for objections. Copies of the notices are sent to interested public agencies, such as county councils, acclimatisation societies, interested Government departments, or other bodies. If no objections are received the water right may be issued forthwith. If there are objections the board will notify the applicant. who then has the choice of abandoning his application. or calling for a tribunal to hear it. Both applicant and objector may nominate persons to sit on a tribunal, or may elect to have the matter heard by the authority's standing tribunal. After a hearing - at which all interested parties may give evidence or make submissions — the tribunal will make a recommendation to the board, with which the final decision rests. Though the board may. in theory, be able to overrule a tribunal, in practice the recommendation of a tribunal is usually accepted. Both the applicant and the objectors have a right of appeal to the Planning Tribunal, which will hold a full rehearing of the application. and may hear evidence and submissions by both parties and bv the board.

No further avenue of appeal exists for disappointed applicants or objectors, save for the right to appeal to the High Court on a point of law. The process can take some considerable time.

An example is an application. heard earlier this month by the North Canterbury Catchment Board's standing tribunal, in respect of the Hororata River by a farmer who had bought a non-irri-gated property with a river boundary. His application for a right

to pump water from the river was lodged with the board last February. In May, an objection was lodged by the Ellesmere County Counccil, which has a water-race intake on the Hororata, downstream of the applicant’s property. The race supplies stock water to some 60 farms, covering about 7000 ha, in Ellesmere County. The board’s tribunal is expected to’ make its recommendations before the end of this month, and if the applicant is successful he can expect to be irrigating his crops by December, some 10 months after his application was lodged.

If there is an appeal the whole summer growing season will probably pass before the matter is resolved.

This is a straightforward case, because only two parties are involved. Though several neighbouring farmers hold water rights, none objected to the application. Had they done so the hearing naturally would have been much longer and more complex and the tribunal's task would have been made more difficult by the need to balance possible gains and losses to several conflicting interests.

It is now too late for any of these neighbours to object to the application, should they wish to do so. They cannot initiate an appeal, though should one of the original parties appeal to the higher tribunal, they maymake submissions.

Water rights, once issued, are not held indefinitely like pastoral leases, but’ are

issued for restricted periods, typically ranging from five to 10 years. The right of renewal is not automatic.

During a boom period of irrigation, when large numbers of water rights are being issued, the multiplicity of expiry dates may lead the board into a game of administrative hopscotch, with patchworks of rights all expiring at different times. As these rights fall due for renewal the board is nowtrying. according to Mr Wood, to rationalise them, so that all rights drawing from common sources mature at the same time.

This will not only ease the board's administrative burden but will enable it to exercise better control over the use of water resources which are. as it is nowcoming to be realised, far from infinite.

No clear rules exist for the allocation of water resources. and the legislation (dating from 1967) under which water rights are issued gives only general guidelines to the issuing authorities.

According to Mr Wood, the basic approach which has evolved is that the benefits to applicants must be balanced against possible losses to other interested parties. These interested parties include recreational users and conservation groups as well as those whose purpose is to use the water for pecuniary gain.

A recurring conflict in the issuing of permits to use underground water is that between domestic and agricultural or horticultural users. Because domestic wells are usually shallow they are more susceptible to fluctuations in the water table than are the deep irrigation wells. Sometimes this leads domestic users to believe that nearby irrigation units are "drawing down" their wells — as happened last year in many parts of Canterbury. In fact, according to engin-

eers, deep irrigation wells may have only a peripheral effect or no effect on the shallow domestic ones, because they may tap different aquifers.

Where it can be shown that there is a "draw-down,’’ the needs of domestic users are considered, but generally it is regarded to be their responsibility to improve the efficiency of their water systems — either by deepening their wells or by installing more effective pumps.

Last summer and autumn many wells' went dry because of a general lowering of the water table which, according to engineers, would have happened, because of seasonal factors, whether or not there had been irrigation. Recordings taken by North Canterbury Catchment Board staff in monitored wells in different parts of the plains show that after peaking in the late 19705. the water table is

rapidly dropping back towards the low point of a decade ago. This means that the owners of wells sunk in the last five years, when the water table was high, will almost certainly have supply difficulties if the summer continues dry. Considerable research has been done in recent years on ground water beneath the Canterbury Plains. and catchment board staff are preparing a major report, due for release next March, on groundwater. At the same time, the board is expected to release the long-awaited report on the Rakaia River resource.

When these are out a clear picture may emerge of the likely future water supplies on the plains, the future of the Rakaia. and of the controversial major irrigation schemes which have been proposed to use its water. Whatever the conclusions

drawn from these reports, it is clear that eventually increasing demand, both urban and rural, will necessitate some system of rationing the water resources of Canterbury.

“I don’t want to sound alarmist, and I don't want to try to give the impression that rationing is just around the comer," says Mr Wood. “But I can foresee a time eventually when we will have to search for major and economic ways of providing storage, either above or below ground, or ways of supplementing the water supply. The alternative will be rationing.

"Rationing will not happen in 10 years, and maybe not in 20 or 30 years. But eventually it will happen," he adds. "The right to use water should not be granted in perpetuity. It is a privilege which demands constant reappraisal according to the available facts."

‘Rationing will happen . . . The right to use water is a privilege’