Board report inadequate — Rakaia River Assn

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 6

Board report inadequate — Rakaia River Assn

The recreational, fishing and wildlife values of the Rakaia River are “outstanding” and the information provided on them in the North Canterbury Catchment Board’s Rakaia Resource Report is “inadequate,” according to the Rakaia River Association.

In its submissions to the board on the report, the association said that the lack of information could disadvantage those who did have a recreational interest in the river.

The board had been gathering information on the river’s development since 1971, but had been collecting data on the recreational, fishing and wildlife values for only a year.

This was because of an amendment to the National Water and Soil Conservation Act, 1981, which required the examination of other than developmental aspects. The final management plan for the Rakaia is due next year, and there was insufficient time to obtain enough data, the submission said. “We submit that it is difficult to imagine what more a recreational resource need offer to qualify as outstanding,” the association said. Taking into account all the river activities, the number of visits made to the Rakaia each year would be “well in excess of 100,000," the submission

said. This figure was likely to rise, rather than remain static. The board had made no reference at all in the report to the tourist industry, which was a “very serious omission.” No reference had been made to the impact on the North Rakaia Mouth Huts settlement when the river mouth moved northwards after prolonged low flows. The submission outlined the association’s worry that an irrigation scheme could be introduced before enough information had been gathered.

The submission also covered the board’s interim report on the Central Plains groundwater resource.

It emphasised that the interim report should be for an interim management plan, not for the final management plan. It opposed the irrigation of areas where soil was of poor quality, thus promoting the pastoralisation, not diversification, of the land.

The economics of border dyke irrigation to increase pastoral production were ’’quite unacceptable,” because of the recharging of groundwater aquifers, the association said.

Border dyke irrigation was wasteful, and would require extensive drainage schemes on the lower plains and the possible permanent opening of Lake Ellesmere.