‘Rakaia decision sets irrigation precedent’

Press, 16 May 1985, Page 2

‘Rakaia decision sets irrigation precedent’

By

TESSA WARD

The Planning Tribunal’s decision on Rakaia irrigation water has set a precedent for future irrigation use of other New Zealand rivers, according to the North Canterbury Catchment Board’s chairman, Mr R. B. Johnson.

Unless the parties in favour of irrigation from the Rakaia River successfully contested the decision it could determine the irrigation use of all other rivers, said Mr Johnson yesterday. “I am troubled that any legislation, or interpretation of it, leads to one interest alone being given pre-emp-tive rights,” he said. “This compares with the much more important principle that all lawful uses and demands on a river be given due consideration based on their relative merits.

“Inevitably the Rakaia issue will be raised again. I believe that the people of the region should decide this issue.” The tribunal’s decision serves as a recommendation accompanied by a report to the Minister of Works and Development, Mr Colman. After considering appeals against the draft conservation order for the Rakaia, the tribunal decided to limit significantly the amount of water that may be taken for irrigation.

In its new conservation order, the tribunal appears to have adopted all the restrictions on water abstraction sought by acclimatisation societies. Mr Colman has to decide whether to endorse the tribunal’s decision, which can be contested by any party on legal grounds in the High Court.

No date had been set for Mr Colman’s decision, which would not be made without careful investigaton, said Mr Colman’s secretary from Wellington yesterday. The National member of Parliament for Selwyn, Miss Ruth Richardson, has contended that the tribunal’s decision was bound by the wording of the law it had to comply with.

This law is the 1981 amendment to the Water and Soil Conservation Act. Its wording did not reflect accurately the intentions of Parliament when it was passed, Miss Richardson said this week.

“The tribunal’s interpretation of the wording was that once it had determined that some wild and scenic features of the river existed, these features had to override consideration of any other features,” she said. “Another amendment is required to make sure that all values of a river are given equal weighting,” she said.

Mr Johnson said that the Catchment Board was not upset by the tribunal’s decision and as an impartial body would follow the river management procedures laid down by the tribunal’s decision when Mr Colman endorsed it.

“The life of a management plan for a resource like the Rakaia River is probably about 10 years before it comes under review,” Mr Johnson said. “There may be a need to review the conservation order by that stage too. "Our draft management plan for the Rakaia River differs from both the tribunal’s decision and the draft order of the National

Soil and Water Conservation Authority. Over the last few years the board has undertaken the most comprehensive gathering of information on the Rakaia yet.” Several experts had been consulted when the board’s draft management plan was drawn up, Mr Johnson said. “The reason our plan differs from the tribunal’s findings is because our plan is based on a different section of the Water and Soil Conservation Act, 1967. The interpretation of this principal act differs from the interpretation of the 1981 amendment to it. “We can work within the guidelines of the new conservation order but it poses difficulties for us. Under the principal act we have defined duties and objectives to meet which are difficult to reconcile with the objectives of the amendment.”

W’ithout an irrigation scheme for the upper central plains using Rakaia water the potential use of groundwater would be “severely limited,” Mr Johnson said. The board’s resources manager, Mr Michael Bowden, said that the board had expected the possible irrigation of 106,000 hectares of the upper plains which would have increased the amount of groundwater available for lower plains irrigation.

“The resultant increase in groundwater could have been used to irrigate about 30,000 hectares of lower plains,” he said. “Under the new conservation order only about 25,000 more hectares of land could be irrigated using groundwater mainly east of State highway 1. “West of the highway the

wells drilled for groundwater would have to be deeper and therefore more expensive to pump. Mr Johnson said that another effect of the tribunal’s decision was that Lake Coleridge had been given partial protection allowing for the existing water rights and authorisations only from the Harper and Wilberforce diversions. “The tribunal commented on the storage capacity of Lake Coleridge, saying it had not been fully enlisted to date. I should note that water spillage from Lake Coleridge is already part of the flow measurements at the Rakaia Gorge so that any further use of Lake Coleridge waters would be limited,” said Mr Johnson.

“The impact of the partial protection is to prohibit a change in the water rights to supplement the Rakaia flow with Lake Coleridge water. Lake Coleridge has the potential to greatly assist the management of the river but this partial protection will restrict any changes in the lake’s use unless the conservation order is reviewed.”

This autumn’s low flows of the Rakaia River and “excellent” salmon run with good catches raised important questions, Mr Johnson said.

“Just how much do we really know about the river? Has the research undertaken been enough to give the correct answers? “Have we the confidence to make detailed decisions? If the tribunal made a correct interpretation of the 1981 amendment was it the intention of the lawmakers and of Parliament?”