Relief as dam plan axed

BY DAVID WILLIAMS

Residents of a Canterbury valley are no longer living with the threat of their land being flooded for a controversial irrigation scheme.

Central Plains Water (CPW) deputy chairman Doug Catherwood said yesterday that the company was withdrawing its notice of requirement over a dam site, reservoir, tunnel and upper Waimakariri River intake.

Malvern Hills Protection Society spokeswoman Rosalie Snoyink said CPW's announcement was what members had hoped for.

"To say it's a huge relief is an understatement," she said.

The dam and reservoir proposal would have seen 280 million cubic metres of water stored near Coalgate, about 60 kilometres west of Christchurch. Up to 15 properties were thought to be affected.

As a requiring authority, CPW could compulsorily acquire designated land for the scheme, but yesterday it confirmed it was unshackling property required for the planned 55 metre-high dam and reservoir for the Waianiwaniwa Valley.

Snoyink said land values had fallen since the notice came into force in 2004, and it was a pity there would be no compensation for those who had wanted to sell.

Farmer Brian Deans, whose family had been in the valley for six generations, said he never thought the scheme would go ahead.

"They were never going to take my land and it wasn't economic," he said. "Nonetheless, it's a relief."

The issue had been divisive for the valley, pitting neighbour against neighbour, Deans said.

CPW chairman Pat Morrison is a neighbour of one of the Deans family's five farms in the area.

CPW was granted requiring authority status by Labour Environment Minister David Benson-Pope in 2005.

Other property owners still have a notice of requirement over their property for the scheme's headrace.

One landowner, Cindy Mackenzie, said her four-hectare block had been "stripped of any worth".

She had wanted to build on the property but was now negotiating a potential sale with CPW.

"This thing could go on for years," she said. "I'd like to move on."

CRT estate agent Chris Abbott said the proposed scheme had had little impact on the property market. "We have sold a whole lot of property in the last five years," he said.

"The only reason the market's ever changed is due to the economy."

Catherwood said that by partially withdrawing its notice of requirement, the company was responding to a recent minute from commissioners hearing consents for the scheme.

"We accept that in the present environment the scheme concept we put before the commissioners is unlikely to be endorsed," he said.

Environment Minister Nick Smith and the Selwyn District Council would be informed when CPW decided which properties were no longer needed, he said.

CPW project manager Derek Crombie said there would be no appeal against the commissioners' rejection of the dam and reservoir.

He said the scheme's effectiveness could be reduced without storage.

"Work is being done on the sizing of the scheme whether 60,000ha is the optimum area. Maybe a lesser area could be done more cost-effectively."

Groundwater and on-farm storage would be vital to the future of the scheme, he said, "with the hope and intent that eventually another source of water will become available".

"For the scheme to be effective, it needs to have storage," he said.

The CPW hearing will resume in October to consider the effects of a reduced run-of-river scheme, particularly the effect of nitrates.

- © Fairfax NZ News