Future of Canty's water in our hands

Consultation on the future of Canterbury's water goes public next month after the final stakeholders' meeting was held last night.

In the past month, Darfield, Timaru, Ashburton and Mackenzie have each held two stakeholders' meetings. At the first meeting, four water consent strategies were put forward. At the second, stakeholders were allowed to state their preferred strategy.

More than 30 different organisations have been represented at the meetings, including Environment Canterbury, Fonterra, Federated Farmers, Fish and Game, and Forest and Bird.

Options tabled for water consent include: keeping the status quo, emphasising environmental protection, a collaborative approach between existing and future consent holders, and emphasising infrastructure development.

Ashburton Mayor Bede O'Malley and ECan chief executive Dr Bryan Jenkins helped oversee the meetings. They were impressed by the engaged debate.

"I think it's been interesting noticing the differences in points of view," said Dr Jenkins.

"Darfield had Central Plains Water on their back doorstep for the last few years, so stakeholders were really pleased to talk about consent approaches other than the current adversarial form. Other regions have had different experiences with irrigation: Ashburton has had strategies for years, but in the Mackenzie Country it is a relatively new thing."

Opihi irrigation representative Peter Scott, who was part of the steering committee for the project, agreed the debate had been good natured.

"Once people meet in these forums, they're less inclined to throw things at one another, and more inclined to listen."

Mr O'Malley said it was time to move on from the old approach to resource consent.

"There are aspects which will be carried over, but the consistent message all the way through is that we've got to move on from it if we're ever going to find a proper solution."

Dr Jenkins said every Canterbury household would receive a summary of the strategies, enabling them to make public submissions.

"It is a very complex debate, so we have to set out the key principles," he said. "If people are given the opportunity to engage in the issues they will take it. The stakeholders are also leaders for particular interest groups, so people will go to them seeking advice."

He said the water consent project was arguably the biggest project of its kind Canterbury had seen.

- © Fairfax NZ News