Over-all assessment urged for Rakaia

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 23

Over-all assessment urged for Rakaia

A scheme-by-scheme, inhouse environmental assessment report on the Rakaia River by the Ministry of Works and Development is not acceptable, according to the Rakaia River Association.

A full environmental impact report on the effects that border dyke irrigation on the plains would have on the. river should be done before any water right conditions were set, said the association’s president, Mr Bernard Wynn-Williams.

An in-house assessment of the Lower Rakaia Irrigation Scheme did not involve the public, he said.' “This is supposed to be a public debate. How can the public participate when its interests in the Rakaia are pushed into the background to make way for those of a comparatively small number of border-dyke irrigation developers?” said Mr Wynn-Williams.

“The river should be considered in one general assessment, not a piecemeal, scheme-by-scheme report. The effects of one scheme

on the river may not be great but the combined effect of all the schemes could mean the destruction of a priceless asset,” he said.

“I cannot see how they can consider the schemes separately.” The Ministry’s environmental impact assessment on the scheme was contracted last week to a consultant firm, Gabites, Porter and Partners. The district water and soil officer, Mr H. S. Morriss, said that the assessment would include social, aesthetic, recreational, fisheries, roading, and drainage interests.

The Ministry had been working on these aspects for two years already and the assessment would have to take the whole river into consideration. “We cannot take each scheme in total isolation. We certainly will have to cover the whole thing, but each separate scheme will have its own assessment.”

“Special-interest groups will be brought into the

final decision at the water right hearing. We will be ; consulting with them and it will be up to them to put pen to paper and give us their submissions.” Mr Morriss noted that although submissions from the public were not officially required, the firm needed their views on the effects of the scheme. The assessment would be completed in about June or July next year, and the caucus was expected to make a decision in the next few weeks on whether to give approval to planning in principle for the scheme.

“Of course the conservation order outcome could affect planning,” said Mr Morriss. The Acclimatisation Societies, in their application for a national conservation order on the river, had asked that a limit of about 40,000 ha be set for the amount of Canterbury Plains land irrigated from' the river, he said. / The Lower Rakaiairrigation Scheme alone" would cover about IIO.OOOha. z