Ngai Tahu backs River not Dam

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2992183/Ngai-Tahu-withdraws-from-i...

Ngai Tahu withdraws from irrigation scheme
By DAVID WILLIAMS - The Press 23/10/2009

Ngai Tahu has quit a North Canterbury irrigation scheme.

The tribe's property company has resigned from the Hurunui Water Project's (HWP) board and put its shares, held by wholly-owned subsidiary Ngai Tahu Forest Estates Ltd, into a trust.

Ngai Tahu's move follows news that the project's resource consent applications with Environment Canterbury have been suspended while its backers try to avoid a court battle with opponents.

Ngai Tahu Property chief executive Tony Sewell said in a statement that the company would like to boost productivity of its Balmoral land holdings, but not at the expense of sustainable use of land and water resources.

"A confrontational approach will not provide the best outcome, and so we are calling on all parties to continue with sound research and to continue to talk with each other to find a sustainable solution."

Sewell would not answer questions from The Press about the move.

The Ngai Tahu runanga's submission to the HWP asked for the applications to be put on hold, despite the property company's shareholding. Consents affected an area of "immense cultural significance", the submission said, and information provided in the application was "entirely inadequate".

Ngai Tahu hapu Ngai Tuahuriri and Ngati Kuri supported a water conservation order for the Hurunui River.

The scheme would include a 75-metre-high dam on the Hurunui's south branch and raise the level of Lake Sumner through a weir to irrigate about 42,000 hectares of farmland.

HWP project manager Amanda Loeffen said she was not surprised the company resigned at last month's board meeting.

Ngai Tahu wanted to take time to decide its freshwater strategy, she said.

"They've had a lot of internal conflict because the property division has been supporting the project," she said. "In my understanding, it's just for the relatively short term while we try to establish something through the Canterbury Water Management Strategy."

The strategy is an attempt by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum to resolve the region's contentious water-allocation problems.

Loeffen said the applications were on hold "for a few weeks" while a water conservation order was discussed with opposition groups and the area was considered as a pilot for the water management strategy.

"It's a big opportunity to save money.

"Instead of spending money in law courts, we could spend it on research and consultation over the next 12 months," she said.

Strategy chairman and Ashburton Mayor Bede O'Malley said Lake Coleridge was the frontrunner for a pilot scheme, but the Hurunui was also being considered.
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Murray Rodgers, chairman of the Water Rights Trust, which supports opposition group Dambusters, said he did not understand HWP's financial arrangements well enough to discern the impact of Ngai Tahu's withdrawal. "But it must surely weaken the position of Hurunui Water," he said.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the pullout was good news for guardians of the river.

"It's highly significant because it shows that one of the key players in terms of environmental management and commercial development in the whole of Canterbury region has realised the environmental folly of this scheme," he said.