PM to get behind water strategies

The Government plans to give water storage and irrigation projects a shot in the arm, and later this year will reduce regulatory "roadblocks" constraining the sector in Canterbury.

"The Government is committed to ensuring that water storage and irrigation projects which meet environmental standards, and which are good economic propositions, can happen in a decent time frame," Prime Minister John Key said in an outline to the first sitting of Parliament for 2010.

"This will include removing regulatory roadblocks to water storage in Canterbury," he said.

The area of irrigated land in New Zealand has doubled every decade since the 1960s and irrigation takes up 77 per cent of all allocated water. Canterbury has nearly 70 per cent of the irrigated land and about 86 per cent of water used in Canterbury is for irrigation.

Water is allocated to farmers under the Resource Management Act, with most paying only for the consent process and monitoring, but the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Jan Wright, says dairy farmers are not paying enough for their pollution and a price needs to be put on water.

The Canterbury regional council, Environment Canterbury, last year announced an ambitious water strategy it said would restore waterways affected by intensive land use.

But the council also said special legislation would be required to provide a legal framework for the 10 committees that the strategy suggested oversee water zones in Canterbury.

Changes to the Resource Management Act and the Local Government Act might be necessary.

The Government has created a land-and-water forum to look at water allocation and report to the Government in July this year.

Nationally, a farmgate value of around $800 million has been estimated for the 1.1 billion cubic metres of water used each year for irrigation, from a total consumption of 1.9b cubic metres. Another 350 million cubic metres is used for livestock.

Agricultural officials estimate that the country could sustain another 200,000 hectares of land being irrigated – adding $330m earnings annually at the farmgate.

According to the Business Council for Sustainable Development, the existing system of water allocation will result in water in all major catchments being fully allocated by 2012.

Options which have been previously canvassed include making it easier for farmers and other users to transfer water consents and axing the present first-in, first-served allocation system for water.

Between 20 per cent and 80 per cent of water allocated for commercial use – including municipal water supplies – is not being used at any one point in time, and the Business Council has said government intervention to ease the transfer of water from one commercial user to another could boost the economy by between $180 million and $300 million annually. NZPA

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