Archaeological report slammed

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An archaeological report that says the Central Plains Water scheme should go ahead has been slammed as inadequate and ambiguous by an independent review.

The archaeological report, funded by Central Plains Water, is part of the irrigation company's evidence to the Environment Canterbury hearings that will determine if the scheme pro-ceeds.

It was prepared by Dr Jeremy Habberfield-Short, an archaeologist from Christchurch consultants Opus International.

His report found that consent should be given for the scheme to go ahead, but also said further archaeological study was then needed before digging began to create the $409 million irrigation network.

A peer review by the University of Otago's Southern Pacific Archaeological Research concluded that the report was inadequate and that "no meaningful conclusions about the effects of the proposal on heritage can be drawn".

The review -- commissioned by the Selwyn District Council -- said there was "considerable ambiguity" in the CPW-funded report and implied key issues had been obscured.

The review said that permission for the scheme should not be granted unless the area was properly studied.

The CPW report focused on nine archaeological sites that had been previously identified within the planned scheme area as being potentially affected by the project.

But while the report discussed the locations, the review noted: "It takes careful reading of the consultant's report to determine that none of the sites potentially affected by the proposal was sighted."

In short, the CPW-funded study did not inspect or visit the potentially -threatened sites.

According to Habberfield-Short's report, two of the nine sites were not visited because landholders refused permission.

In four of the cases the con-sultant was "unable to contact" the landholder and in the re-maining cases the sites could not be found.

Those explanations did not impress the reviewing archaeologist Chris Jacomb who concluded: "The field survey was not adequate to obtain the information required by the consenting authority (Environment Canterbury)."

Habberfield-Short and Jacomb are expected to give evidence during the Environment Canterbury hearing, which is resuming today, that will decide the fate of the irrigation scheme.

The Historic Places Trust, which has expressed concern about the scheme's impact on the heri-tage values of the area, will also make a submission and is expected to request that the scheme not go ahead.

Jacomb's review also criticised the CPW report's basic approach -- simply searching for the nine sites, which had already been identified in the Selwyn Council's Proposed District Plan.

The review said those sites had been accidentally uncovered by landowners and said there had never been a systematic archaeological study of the area.

It said that such a study should have been done by Central Plains Water and it was likely it would have uncovered more sites.

Since the Central Plains Water consultant could not find the recorded sites and did not attempt to find any new sites, the review concluded: "This makes any assessment of the archaeological values of the individual sites all but impossible."

The review also found that Central Plains Water's report had a "major shortcoming" because it did not assess the significance of the sites it discussed within the scheme area.

"This information is required by the consenting authority and should have been provided by Central Plains Water," it said.

While the CPW report contained little specific evidence of significant sites, it did discuss the presence of raised rim ovens, indicating the area's past importance for Maori culture.

The Central Plains Water report said that any sites accidentally discovered during construction should be protected, and if protection was not possible, sites should be documented before they were destroyed.

But the review added that the indigenous custodians of the land, Ngai Tahu, had identified some areas within the scheme zone as having a "high likelihood of archaeological sites being present".

These are mostly within the Waianiwaniwa Valley, an area that will be almost completely flooded by the 12 sq km reservoir that is part of the Central Plains proposal.

- © Fairfax NZ News