In the week ahead the HB Regional Council will once again consider its pathway to ‘water security’ for the region.
Actually, there appear to be two pathways, at quite different levels of development and institutional commitment and enthusiasm. Both will be addressed at the Council July 30 meeting.
Pathway 1 is building a 27 million cube storage dam at presently estimated $225 million on a tributary of the Ngaruroro, with HBRC set Wednesday to approve $3.2 million to complete the necessary feasibility studies.
Pathway 2 involves exploring a smorgasbord of interventions to reduce water demand from fixing leaks to smarter irrigation to industrial re-use to household water conservation, with a few alternative supply options thrown in for good measure.
Way back when (2023), the Regional Water Assessment emphasised that all tools must be readied to effectively meet the region’s future water needs, noting:
“Water storage can support many objectives, but it cannot be a substitute for improving the way we use water. Instead water storage can offset the extent and urgency with which changes must be made to our water demands.”
Logic would suggest that demand reduction initiatives should precede any expensive ‘gap-filler’ water storage options, but that has not happened. Instead, HBRC has put the cart before the horse.
In its 2021-31 LTP consultation, HBRC proposed setting aside $1 million for “demand management initiatives”, receiving 83% support from submitters. But no serious demand reduction initiatives have been undertaken — is the $1 million gone … or still available?
So while the Heretaunga Water Storage project enjoys HBRC’s version of the ‘fast track’, with $3.2 million about to be bestowed, the demand reduction pathway has been effectively ‘slow tracked’ … I can’t even say ‘drip-fed’.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Councillors will ponder a laundry list of demand reduction possibilities and the staff will ask for their direction on how to proceed. Staff offers no recommendations on where to begin, and so asks Councillors to green light development of a “strategic framework”, which is where the matter stood a month ago (in fact 2-3 years ago). What a heap of bureaucratic tripe.
HBRC should commission a senior leader with appropriate expertise and mana, access to the missing $1 million budget, and no other responsibilities to drive a high profile, comprehensive demand reduction effort, much like Andrew Caseley has been used with great success to drive HBRC’s immediate priority flood protection projects.
Anything less is pretending.
Water, and the treatment/storage/disposal of it, has been poorly handled by all councils (and the public) for generations. Unless, and until, all local bodies and central government (and the public again) decide to get together and actually start looking for long term, environmentally sound, solutions, water will continue to be polluted, abused, and wasted for yet more generations. Without it we die, so why isn’t this a matter of utmost importance to all people of this country. There’s always idiots who think they have a right to do what they like with natural resources – time to treat them as the pariahs they are! But without expert knowledge and treatment of this element, that is essential to life, in a way that keeps it clean and continuously available, we may as well just accept our dinosaur like fate.
There is never any mention of wanting to build on a knowen fault line up river from all hawkes bay towns.It is widely publicised there is going to be “a big one” A busted dam wojld take out all these towns.What is wrong ,is making money more important ? It seems like the answer is yes .