Just as Hawke’s Bay has been literally overflowing with water these past months, so too are our decisionmakers barely afloat in coping with water policy issues. 

Some issues are of our own making, as our councillors (especially Regional Councillors) attempt to get on top of the best available facts and science and then reconcile that information with the disparate values and demands of myriad regional interest groups. 

In addition, directives and initiatives from central government create mandatory bottom lines and schedules that must be accommodated by our regional policies. 

And infusing the decision-making process throughout is the mandate for co-governance on these matters with iwi representatives, who in many cases are still digging into the issues, stretched thin as they give shape and resources to their own internal policy-forming processes. 

Even just picking a place to begin in providing an update on the region’s water issues is daunting. 

So, for starters, I’m omitting ‘3 Waters’ – the Government’s plan to lift management and funding of drinking water, stormwater and wastewater infrastructure – from this discussion. BayBuzz has covered this issue thoroughly online; just google ‘3 Waters’ on our website if that’s your interest. 

Here I’ll focus on freshwater water supply, allocation and quality, and the status of decision-making around those issues. 

Stage-setters 

When it comes to water supply and allocation, two broad ‘stage-setters’ must be taken into account. 

First is the government’s National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS-FM 2020). This new framework sets critical ground rules our Regional Council must adhere to: 

1. It requires that, “Freshwater is allocated and used efficiently, all existing over-allocation is phased out, and future over-allocation is avoided.” 

2. It prescribes a clear priority order for water use: 

• “first, the health and well-being of water bodies and freshwater ecosystems; 

• second, the health needs of people (such as drinking water); 

• third, the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being, now and in the future.” 

In other words, protect the aquatic environment, provide adequate drinking water, and only then consider commercial uses. 

[With respect to water quality, the NPS requires local authorities to, “Ensure that the health and well-being of degraded water bodies and freshwater ecosystems is improved, and the health and well-being of all other water bodies and freshwater ecosystems is maintained and (if communities choose) improved.” It is quite prescriptive as to how this must be accomplished.] 

So here in HB we must phase out existing over-allocation (or more meaningfully, over-use) and avoid it in the future … requirements with huge implications for future water use in Central HB and on the Heretaunga Plains. 

To get started, what do we know about current allocation and future water supply and demand? Enter the second ‘stage-setter’. 

The task of documenting that ‘knowledge base’ falls to the HBRC’s ‘Regional Water Assessment’, a project in the works for two years that has yet to produce its final report. An ‘Interim Report’ has existed for a year, but only officially seen by a chosen few, mostly within HBRC. BayBuzz understands that a ‘Final’ version might be forthcoming by year’s end; it must be approved by councillors before any wider public release. 

The Interim Report sets forth three basic demand and supply scenarios, making assumptions about ‘constrained’ and ‘unconstrained’ demand growth rates, about differing climate assumptions, and about achieving differing levels of water efficiency and conservation. 

Public comments have been made by some privy to the Report that emphasise the ‘worst case’ scenarios. Thus you might have read of ‘water shortages’ (over the baseline season of 2019/2020 ) predicted in the range of 84m3 (by 2040) to 200m3 (by 2060). 

Get out those excavators and start building mega-dams! 

However, not touted at all is a scenario indicating that – based on improved water use – demand might increase only one percent by 2040 and decrease by three percent by 2060. I’ll wager you haven’t read that before! Inquiring minds should want to know exactly what can be achieved in terms of ‘improved’ water use – for example, might it include incentivising farmers to focus on improving soil health (which yields higher water retention)? 

The Interim Report includes an overview discussion of the various ‘interventions’ that could reduce demand or increase supply – all of these will need to be examined in granular detail as future projects and choices are served up. 

We are promised a more robust range of supply/demand scenarios in the Final Regional Water Assessment. It begs for completion, public release and debate. 

Logically, why would we make any consequential water allocation decisions before that? 

And yet we are. Because individual projects and initiatives have clocks and timetables of their own. I’ll now address several. TANK is perhaps the best example. 

TANK (Tūtaekurī, Ahuriri, Ngaruroro & Karamū catchments) 

The TANK consultative process was launched ten years ago with the goal of arriving at a multi-stakeholder consensus of how the major freshwater bodies around the Heretaunga Plains should be managed, dealing with both water allocation and quality. HBRC committed to abiding by the recommendations of this group. 

The environmentally sound and equitable use of water in these catchments in the heart of Hawke’s Bay is the central water use issue of the region from an economic perspective. 

A consensus with many important features – including a ‘cap’ on existing allocations (with future allocations based on ‘actual and reasonable use’), barring of dams on key waterways, tougher water quality standards, better source protection for drinking water, among others – was achieved and presented to HBRC in 2018. There it foundered in HBRC’s Regional Planning Committee for two years, with Māori reps effectively demanding a re-do of the entire plan. 

A Plan Change (PC9) was officially notified in May 2020, submissions from 240 parties were heard by an independent Hearing Panel, which finally rendered its decision this past September 9th. The decision, seen as a ‘win’ by HBRC, affirms the key provisions in HBRC’s notified plan. Still, earlier consensus long gone, the Panel notes: “There are some very contentious areas where there are polarised views. Our decisions do not resolve all of these tensions; rather they reflect our collective best judgment about where the lines should be drawn.” 

Complicating the Panel’s work was the Government’s issuance of the NPS-FM 2020 during this period, significantly changing the underlying ground rules, as noted above. 

Previous TANK submitters had until 26 October to appeal the decision to the Environment Court. 

No water policy-making process in Hawke’s Bay has been more exasperating. Uncertainty remains for all interests – environmentalists, our urban councils, growers and processors, and iwi. Nonetheless, appeals are expected. Face each other in a circular firing squad … and fire. [Editor: over a dozen appeals have been filed.]

Water conservation order 

And management of the critical TANK catchments gets even more complicated. As the TANK process was evolving, some environmental and recreational groups, and two marae reps, sought a ‘Water Conservation Order’ from government, viewing that as a means of imposing greater protection for the Ngaruroro River. WCOs are higher level statements of objectives and do not include the regulatory detail of a plan change. 

That process entailed a different Special Tribunal being set up by the Environment Minister, and basically hearing much of the same evidence and argumentation considered by the TANK process … to the extreme consternation of HBRC and most of the TANK participants. 

The Tribunal issued a draft Conservation Order in 2019 for the upper Ngaruroro (above the Whanawhana cableway), while declining one for the lower river, and this has been appealed to the Environment Court by 9 parties, including HBRC. As this is being written, a final Court decision is expected by the end of October. [Editor: Since this article was published in BayBuzz magazine, the Environment Court has recommended a WCO covering the entire Ngaruroro, as discussed here by HBRC Councillor Xan Harding.]

Even bigger picture – Kotahi 

Including all the TANK catchments and the policy-making just described, is a new requirement set by the NPS-FM 2020 that the Regional Council must notify a water plan for the entire region by December 2024 that will give effect to the NPS-FM 2020 by the end of December 2025. 

HBRC has already begun a broad public consultation for Kotahi. It will need to ‘mop up’ and somehow reflect the array of rulings described above, as well as other water policy and planning decisions, mostly addressing specific projects, flowing elsewhere through the HBRC pipeline. 

Water storage – CHB 

The most controversial initiatives seeking to progress in the region involve water storage. 

And the granddaddy of these would be efforts to resuscitate the Ruataniwha Dam. 

Dam 1, apart from other shortcomings, failed in 2017 when the Supreme Court refused to allow the consent holders (HB Regional Investment Corp) to flood land that was protected as conservation land. Any attempt to revive a Dam 2 must find a way around that edict, which would require legislative action … unlikely but not impossible under a Labour Government. 

Hence, critical to the revival effort is buying time in hopes of a more dam-friendly regime. However, the consents to build a dam on the Makaroro River, now owned by private parties (chiefly Tim Gilbertson, 50 percent and Hugh Ritchie, 15%), expire in June 2024. And so the consent owners have sought a five year extension of the consents to get their house in order as it were. Even as they scramble to pay $260,000 in unpaid development charges to HBRC. 

The matter now sits before an independent Commissioner, whose decision will be informed only by the applicants’ information and by an ‘Officer’s Report’ to be prepared for HBRC by a planning consultant. As this is written, the latest guesstimate is that the report would be submitted by mid-October, with a decision shortly after that. 

Despite the obviously major ramifications of the extension decision, no other parties – other than those hand-picked as ‘interested parties’ by the applicants (a loaded deck) – are permitted to participate in this process. And when the decision is given, only the applicants have a ‘right of objection’ which could lead to a hearing. 

If the consents are not extended, any plan to build a large-scale dam anywhere in CHB would need to start from scratch, coping with the new NPS-FW 2020 requirements that existing over-allocation must be phased out and priority use of water must be given to protecting ecosystems. As well as CHBDC’s existing designation of protected ‘Significant Natural Areas’ at the site. Would Dam 2 be dead? For CHB dam-builders, there’s always a Plan B! 

If the consents are extended, then a major political battle of the previous Dam 1 scale, or larger, will be joined. And, I’ll wager, with the same result … no dam. 

Let’s be clear. Any dam intended to hold 100m3 of water in CHB is primarily intended to protect and continue the existing misallocation of most of CHB’s allocated water to a handful of dairy farms. Existing water – and any ‘new’ water, if there were to be any – must be re-allocated along terms that: a) meet the regulatory strictures of NPS-FW 2020; and b) are based on an updated assessment of the CHB land uses that would make the best use of extracted water going forward. 

Until our CHB and HBRC politicians have the balls to tackle the issue of allocation squarely, transparently and with optimal future land use in mind, addressing the water security aspirations of CHB will be stymied. 

Meantime … 

Another CHB water storage initiative – Managed Aquifer Recharge – seems to have more merit and has gained more traction. In simplest terms, this trial project would capture surface water at high flow, and through a combination of settling pond and direct injection, use that water to ‘recharge’ the underlying aquifer. Such schemes are employed successfully overseas. 

The trial would be undertaken on the property of Phil King in Tikokino. Key to the project will be using some of the recharge water to trial innovative land use and irrigation. This aspect is being planned with the HB Future Farming Trust. 

HBRC is sponsoring and planning this trial directly and after extensive local consultation filed the requisite resource consent application on September 16th. It is estimated that the consenting process will take 5-6 months. During this period the project team will undertake detailed planning and procurement for construction and concurrently look to firm up the Landuse/Irrigation Innovation Trial. 

Another CHB-related water extraction proposal comes from eight irrigators – Tranche 2 extraction from the Ruataniwha aquifer. 

As BayBuzz previously reported, the eight T2 applicants are seeking 15m3 of Ruataniwha aquifer water ‘discovered’ by the Commissioners who made the decisions about Tukituki management and the proposed dam back in 2015. Even then the Regional Council objected, believing the aquifer was at the razor’s edge of depletion. And now, seven years later, it is even more evident that we need to be saving water in that aquifer, not allocating/depleting more of it. 

The hearing by three independent commissioners on those applications will commence on 15 November. [Editor: since this article was published in BayBuzz magazine, the HBRC Officers’ Report has been issued, opposing the applications.]

Water storage – Heretaunga 

The TANK parties were aware of potential water storage opportunities involving the Ngaruroro River. 

More recently, HBRC has said two of these options could deliver 25m3 of water to the Heretaunga Plains. 

One of these, first mooted in 2019, is a proposition put forward by landowner Mike Glazebrook to raise the height of an existing dam on his Maraekakaho property so as to store approximately 5m3 more water. The additional water would be captured from high flows on the Ngaruroro, as Glazebrook is presented consented to do. 

Most of the additional water would be fed in dry season through the progression of streams leading eventually to the Karamū Stream, with the aim of enhancing lowland flows and thereby the aquatic ecosystem. [This video describes the scheme: https://bit.ly/3MAxKRr] 

At the time, all the TANK parties had occasion to visit Glazebrook’s site and ‘kick the tyres’, and seemed to judge the scheme a win/win. That said, the project was not formally endorsed by the TANK process. 

HBRC was awarded PGF funding to investigate full feasibility of the scheme, stipulating a co-design process with Māori, but this work has been frustrated by Māori opposition in the Bridge Pa community. Unfortunately, this opposition could result in PGF ultimately abandoning the project. 

The same PGF funding has allowed HBRC to investigate other dam-building that could augment environmental flows, provide ‘new’ water for Māori, and help offset the effects of commercial takes as permitted in the TANK decision. 

The TANK plan, with environmentalist support, expressly banned dams on the main stems of the Ngaruroro and Tūtaekurī Rivers and four of their key tributaries. It was conceded that small scale dams at other sites previously looked at by HBRC might be suitable. 

HBRC has explored those sites further, all below the Whanawhana cableway. Preliminary work has identified a preferred site off the Ngaruroro and now the likes of Tonkin & Taylor and GNS are conducting geotech, seismic, hydrological, and terrestrial and aquatic ecological assessments. 

If this work indicates a viable dam site, then the Regional Council would need to approve full-scale feasibility investigation (including economics, service footprint). Any subsequent decision to actually build a dam would require full public consultation. Conceivably, this might occur as part of the Kotahi master water planning process. 

Navigating these waters 

Several challenges seem to confound prudent water decision-making. 

First, the frustrating time consumed – years, during which facts, science, legislation and players change and institutional knowledge is lost. Most of the HBRC’s most knowledgeable staff – water, science and planning – involved in the earlier investigations are now gone. The new Regional Council has five new councillors and five who have served but one term. The biggest issues outlined above – TANK and Ruantaniwha Dam 1 – were shaped and debated by their forebears and just now re-emerge on the Council’s agenda. As governors, most Councillors have a steep learning curve ahead. 

The Government through its NPS-FW 2020 has thrown out the old paradigm that allowed water takes indiscriminately, for whatever purpose, on a first-come, first-get basis. 

Now the resulting over-allocation must be clawed back, and all use of extracted water must serve the environment first. Our politicians, the public, current commercial water users need to absorb that reality and its implications. 

That leaves water storage schemes – of whatever scale and format – needing to face much more demanding criteria and scrutiny, including assessing what long-term land use is most deserving of irrigation. And before jumping to those schemes, opportunities and incentives for greater water efficiency, conservation and in-soil retention must be given a far higher priority. 

Second, All this must be done in the new – and totally legitimate – framework of co-governance. 

That said, presently – and probably in the near-term – greater Māori engagement is more a drag on decision-making than an enabler. Māori advocates have internal disputes, individual and group agendas, differing levels of knowledge, and personal peccadillos no less than members of the Pākehā tribe! And an inclination to prove new-won power. Even when worldviews converge, producing more joint ‘Yes’s than ‘No’s, the clocks of Pākehā decision-making and the clocks of Māori decision-making do seem to run differently. Co-governance leading to the ‘greater good’ in the water space will take time to evolve. 

Third, although legislatively provided for, relegating so many of our community’s most urgent and strategic decisions to non-elected surrogates – to faceless commissioners and even more faceless outside planning consultants – seems a huge dereliction of duty. But that’s what we’ve done on most of the issues described above. Commissioners approve dams, mandate ‘new’ water, extend/deny consents, write rules of profound environmental and economic consequence. Where’s the public accountability in that? 

I close in frustration, knowing that a number of key decisions affecting Hawke’s Bay’s water future might be made by the time you are reading this forecast! So I hope you’ll stay tuned to BayBuzz’s online service, where we’ll try to make sense of where we’re headed on a regular basis.