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Hawkes Bay
PRESS STATEMENT
Wednesday 28 June 2023
The Wise Water Use Hawkes Bay environmental group believe that the key finding of the Regional Water Assessment Report (RWA) that Hawkes Bay’s freshwater resource is over-allocated requires Council to immediately review and reallocate large consents.
“At last the worst kept secret in Hawkes Bay has been spelt out in black and white – our aquifers and rivers are over-allocated. The report’s authors are to be applauded for highlighting this legacy issue and for promoting remedies that include both demand reduction, and clawing back large economically unfair and environmentally unsustainable consents”, says spokesperson Dr Trevor Le Lievre.
The RWA cites the National Policy Statement – Freshwater Management 2020 as justification to invoke clawbacks: ‘The NPS-FM 2020 requires that over-allocation is avoided and steps are taken to clawback allocation where water is over-allocated’.
Further, it turns out that by using our water more wisely Hawkes Bay could actually have a water surplus of 16.3 Mm3 by 2040. This equates to over 4 years’ worth of water currently allocated for the entire township of Waipukurau.
Another key finding is that Central Hawkes Bay (CHB) has the highest water use per capita and the lowest financial return measured by GDP across the region.
“If CHB used its water as efficiently as Wairoa our district could be earning around $1 billion additional income each year.
Unfortunately, the RWA doesn’t break down water use by sector to identify where it’s being squandered, but it’s apparent to CHB locals that massive irrigation of pasture to graze dairy cows is the culprit with just 10 mostly intensive dairy farms allocated around 60% of CHB’s water.”
Wise Water Use HB believes that this shift in focus away from supply to demand management of our finite water resource is long overdue.
“For far too long the focus has been on expensive taxpayer-funded water storage projects that will simply enable the status quo to continue. Historically, our local political leaders have allowed our finite water resource to be squandered and our waterways to be polluted, all for a $20.00 block of cheese”, says Dr Le Lievre
Wise Water Use HB believes that the RWA sets out a clear pathway for our Regional Council by identifying over allocation as the key cause of Hawkes Bay’s water woes, and suggesting demand measures to address this legacy issue.
“Past councils have chosen to look the other way and ignore over-allocation. The RWA now clearly identifies the elephant in the room, and the means to address it. The legal ability to clawback large water consents exists under section 128 of the Resource Management Act. All that is required is the political will, and Wise Water Use HB strongly urge our current Council to initiate an immediate review and reallocation of large consents”, said Dr Le Lievre.
For comment contact:
Dr Trevor Le Lievre (spokesperson, Wise Water Use HB)
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