$3m Awatere water boost

BLAIR ENSOR/Marlborough Express

LET IT RAIN: Sam Contracting owner Sam Orchard revels in water provided by the new Awatere Irrigation Ltd scheme.

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The new $3 million Awatere Irrigation Scheme has been hailed as the biggest boost to farming in the Awatere Valley in more than half a century and will treble the value of 17 properties, according to the scheme's chairman.

Awatere Irrigation Ltd (AIL) celebrates the official opening of the scheme today, a little over a year since construction began.

The scheme's chairman, James Jermyn, called it the "biggest boost" to farming in the area since the Awatere Water Supply (Birch Water Scheme) extension was introduced in 1962.

He conservatively estimated that properties connected to the scheme would treble in value over time, and he did not expect to see another project like it in the Awatere Valley.

Funded entirely by its landowner shareholders, the scheme would ensure farmers "had another string to their bow" to combat summer droughts, Mr Jermyn said.

In July 2008, the Marlborough District Council granted the AIL irrigation scheme resource consent, with a 30-year term to take Awatere River surface water via a filtration trench up to a maximum of 22518 cubic metres a day.

The company's resource consent application, lodged in March last year, said the land to be irrigated was dryland pasture, but viticulture and cash-crop development were also planned.

Viticulture development would be irrigated at a maximum of 18 cubic metres per hectare per day, and broad-acre irrigation would be at a maximum of 36cubic metres per hectare per day.

Construction began in November last year and more than 17 kilometres of piping had been installed on the southern side of the Awatere River.

Most of the scheme was gravity fed and had a flow rate of about 200 litres per second.

Like all irrigation schemes, the benefits for farmers would be long term, Mr Jermyn said. Grapes, garlic, Talley's crops and more intense fat lamb production were all possibilities, but "it will be up to the individual farmers to use it how they want to.

"It's been a hell of a bloody input, but worth it in the end," he said. "It shows what can be done when a group of like-minded people get together and decide to do something."

Richmond Brook Vineyards shareholder Andrew Richmond, also a shareholder in AIL, said it would provide certainty of supply. The vineyard's existing irrigation scheme was reliant on runoff into the property's dam.

Mr Richmond said there was potential in the future for it to be used in other farming activity.

Breach Oak owner and AIL shareholder Warwick Lissaman said sheep and beef would remain the primary focus of his property in the immediate future, but the new water source would provide new cropping options.

"[Water] is probably the biggest resource available to make change. It will change the seasonality of the farming operation."

Flaxbourne Community Irrigation (FCIL) treasurer John Hickman said he was "in the jealous boat", because water was the way forwards.

"There's no two ways about it. I'd love to be in their position. We hope to be there one day."

FCIL, a company that emerged from the Flaxbourne Water Enhancement Group and has 50 paying subscribers, is working out how to best develop an irrigation scheme after the Marlborough District Council approved a 30-year consent in March allowing it to take up to 45,000 cubic metres of water a day from the Waima River.

- The Marlborough Express