Rakaia River draft order draws appeals

Press, 17 May 1984, Page 1

Rakaia River draft order draws appeals

The Rakaia River’s draft conservation order has been opposed by the New Zealand Acclimatisation Societies and supported by Federated Farmers and the irrigation associations involved.

The Acclimatisation Societies yesterday lodged an appeal with the Planning Tribunal opposing parts of the draft order. The National Water and Soil Conservation Authority announced the order last month.

Although the authority had acknowledged that there were outstanding wildlife and fisheries values in the river, its recipe for sharing the water had not supported that, said the chief executive officer for the societies, Mr Bryce Johnson.

“In our application for the order we were trying to get a measure of naturalness in the water left in the river,” said Mr Johnson.

“The order was supposed to protect that naturalness, but also acknowledging water needed for irrigation.

“Unfortunately the bulk allocation of water to the irrigation schemes and the rather strong sharing arrangement proposed is not going to adequately protect the outstanding values in the river,” he said. The societies had also

made submissions supporting parts of the order, Mr Johnson said.

The authority has recommended that a maximum of 70 cubic metres a second (cumecs) be taken out of the river.

In the summer months crucial for irrigation, a minimum flow of 90 cumecs should be retained. The first 30 cumecs above that should be shared, with one cumec remaining in the river for every two cumecs extracted, the order said. The chairman of the combined irrigation associations in Canterbury and the spokesman for Federated Farmers, Mr Ness Wright, said last evening that the order would allow planning for irrigation schemes to go ahead.

The bulk allocation, however, of a maximum of 70 cumecs was “barely enough,” he said. As planning for the schemes advanced, the associations would then seek more water, but they had enough to go on, he said. “Any further restriction on agriculture will be vigorously opposed,” said Mr Wright. The irrigation associations and Federated Farmers had met twice in the last fortnight to come to their conclusions, he said. Should an inquiry be held, the groups would want to be heard, he said. They had

made submissions stating this to the tribunal. The chairman of the Central Plains Irrigation Association, Mr David Watson, said last evening that planning could go ahead for irrigation for about 70,000 ha instead of the 100,000 ha which needed it. “We felt that as we had enough water to irrigate 70 per cent of the land we wanted to get started and not worry about appeals.”

Mr Watson said the farmers and the irrigation associations had never wanted to monopolise the Rakaia River.

“We have always wanted to share the water, and we see a fair sharing of it as being a realistic approach.” Mr Watson said that fur-

ther investigation could prove that the remaining 30 per cent of the land could be irrigated by using Lake Coleridge to supplement low river flows.

Other appeals against the order have been lodged by the Rakaia River Association and the Jet Boat Association, under the umbrella of the Aucklandbased Environmental Defence Society.

The registrar of the Planning Tribunal, Mr R. McKeown, said yesterday that he had received “quite a few” objections to the order.

He would not divulge their names as he said he did not have enough staff available to read out the list.