Hearing told of failure to check consents

BY PENNY WARDLE

Marlborough District Council's failure to enforce conditions on resource consents issued in the district came under the spotlight at an Environment Court hearing in Blenheim this week.

The court is considering whether TrustPower should be granted resource consent to build a hydroelectric power scheme on the Wairau River. A council-appointed panel's 2008 decision to grant the consent was appealed and is now being reconsidered by the court.

The court heard from council hydrologist Val Wadsworth, who grew up on a family farm 2 kilometres from the river and has worked with local government in Marlborough since 1974.

At the original hearing, Mr Wadsworth was concerned about hydrological issues surrounding the scheme and his status as a neutral witness was challenged by TrustPower. These reservations had mostly been put to rest, he said.

Among Mr Wadsworth's original concerns was that groundwater drawdown when TrustPower removed flow from the Wairau could cause tributaries to dry up before they entered the river.

Save the Wairau and Fish & Game lawyers Mike Hardy-Jones and Maree Baker highlighted that this "disrupted connectivity" already affected the Branch River, due to reduced flows caused by TrustPower's Branch hydro scheme.

Mr Wadsworth said fishers frequently complained to him that the riverbed was dry beneath the Branch Bridge. A condition set by council when the original permit was issued in 1988 did not achieve its original aim of maintaining flow, he said. Despite submissions from Fish & Game that the condition was ineffective, it remained in place when the permit was renewed in 1999.

To allay Fish & Game concerns that the drying up of the confluence was blocking spawning migrations, a new condition required that TrustPower investigate alternative ways of maintaining catchable trout upstream of the Branch, said Mr Wadsworth. This condition was to be reviewed by the council one year after the consent was granted, but as far as he was aware this had never happened. There were no provisions for the council to carry out adaptive management of the Branch scheme and as far as he was aware, no management plan.

"Was it council practice to wait for complaints when conditions of consents were not met rather than proactively ensure compliance?" Ms Baker asked.

Mr Wadsworth said the council did not monitor thousands of water consents, many with run-off trigger levels. It lacked the resources that would be needed and the compliance team was in its infancy, he said.

"Could the council effectively manage the extremely complex TrustPower consent?" Ms Baker asked.

"TrustPower consent monitoring is a job for life and I may apply for it," Mr Wadsworth joked.

"I would imagine, given the degree of public interest and feedback, there will be considerable pressure on council to make sure that this consent is right. Probably this will be harder to ignore than Fred down the road irrigating his corn when he shouldn't be because Fred is a nice bloke, anyway."

Also, TrustPower would employ a high level of electronic monitoring, said Mr Wadsworth.

In his evidence, he said if the TrustPower scheme went ahead, the frequency of extended low flows which affected the Wairau River every 100 years would increase to every five years. For example, a flow below 20.2 cumecs lasting 34 days could be expected once a century near Wairau Valley township. Post-scheme, a similar event could be expected every five years.

Groundwater levels in nearby Timms Creek – a spawning tributary for trout – could be affected, he said. The ongoing monitoring required in the groundwater management plan would be important in this area.

There were problems with both options set out in conditions for restoring connectivity, said Mr Wadsworth. While southbank streams could be replenished from the hydro-canal, "northbank streams don't have that luxury". Bed excavation would require a resource consent and potentially landowner agreement.

Questioned by TrustPower lawyer Christian Whata, Mr Wadsworth said different weather influences meant when flows at Tuamarina were at a level that allowed TrustPower its maximum take, tributary levels could be low.

Some of these tributaries hardly came above the gumboots at medium flows, meaning even a minor drop in water levels could block fish passage. Given anticipated water level changes of 0.2 to 0.3 metres maximum in the affected reach, the probability of this occurring was low, he said.

- The Marlborough Express