Ten years ago the HB Regional Council launched an ambitious process designed to yield a broad-based community-led consensus on how water supply and quality should be managed in the TANK catchment (TANK: Tūtaekurī, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro and Karamū catchments).
This land area includes the bulk of agricultural production and processing in the region, as well as the bulk of our residential population and our most fragile urban waterways and ecosystems.
So, rather important to get it right. The TANK community process did yield a ‘consensus’ on many key issues, which was handed off to HBRC in 2018, where it foundered in the Regional Planning Committee. Officially notified in 2020, after the usual submission and hearing process, a Hearings Panel rendered its final decision this past September 9.
Finally, ‘good to go’ right? Not a chance.
All parties who had participated had a right of appeal to the Environment Court, and at the deadline for appeals this week, the following had done so:
- Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society
- Wairua Dairies Ltd
- BP Oil NZ Ltd, Mobil Oil NZ Ltd and Z Energy Ltd
- Horticulture NZ
- Mangaroa Marae, representing the hapū – Ngāti Rāhungaiterangi, Ngāti Pōpōro, Ngāti Pāhū and Ngāti Pouwharekura
- Ōmahu marae, (HUPHA) – Ngāti Hinemanu, Ngāti Te Upokoiri, Ngāti Honomōkai, Ngāti Mahuika Hapu Authority Inc.
- Hastings District Council
- Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Inc
- Napier City Council
- Heinz Wattie’s Ltd
- T & G global Ltd
- Delegat Ltd
- Hawke’s Bay Winegrowers Association Inc: Gimblett Gravels Winegrowers Association Inc, Villa Maria Estate Ltd, Pernod Ricard Winemakers NZ Ltd
- Aotearoa New Zealand Fine Wine Estates LP
- Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga
- Federated Farmers of NZ Inc
It appears no sector is happy. Which could mean, ironically, that the HBRC and its notified plan, which the Hearing Panel commissioners largely endorsed, got it right!
In any event, the Environment Court process – through tweaking, mediation and some tough decisions – is expected to take another year at best to arrive at a final plan for managing the region’s arguably most critical water.
I report more fully on this water dispute and many others now percolating in the region in my overview in our forthcoming Nov/Dec BayBuzz magazine, Water, water everywhere … who will get it?
Hi Tom, thanks for your article on this. My view as a TANK participant for the duration, is that as you suggest, the Hearings Panel got it pretty right. Given that we have the overriding regional limit-setting ‘Kotahi’ plan change also in play, I would have liked to see no appeals on TANK, so that Council would have been given a free hand to get on with implementing the many improvements in the Plan. But not to be. Some of the parties’ appeals are very focussed on narrow technical issues that needn’t get in the way of implementation but others (especially & understandably iwi) are broad-reaching, which will put the Council in a difficult position on what can be implemented in advance of resolution of the appeals. In my view, mediation is unlikely to be successful, so perhaps the best that can be hoped for is that the Environment Court wheels turn very slowly, so that the Kotahi process can traverse the same issues more effectively and more cheaply – all by December 2024, a very ambitious timetable bestowed on us all by Central Government!