MUST READ! Tom Belford (Editor, Bay Buzz) explains Hawkes Bay’s water issues in plain language.

Tom Belford (Editor, Bay Buzz)

At a whopping 3,000 words, Bay Buzz Editor Tom Belford’s missive on Hawkes Bay’s water issues is surely a bible for all those straining to get their heads around local water issues.

Aptly titled “Water … intrigue at every turn”, Tom takes the reader on the ride of their lives down the turbulent rapids of local water politics, from Wairoa in the north to Central Hawkes Bay in the south.

Of specific interest to Wise Water Use readers will be the Central Hawkes Bay section, which primarily focuses on the attempt by the recently-formed Tukituki Water Security Project (TWSP) to resurrect the failed Ruataniwha dam.

The dam, first mooted in around 2011, was always a leaky prospect, until it finally burst its banks (and the bank, having sucked in $20 million of ratepayers’ money) in 2017, with a Supreme Court decision that ruled the conservation status of the Ruahine Forest Park within the dam’s flood zone could not be revoked.

The size of the proposed dam – at 93 million m3 it would have been Aotearoa’s largest irrigation dam – was matched only by its proponent’s eyes for personal gain. Even those rural folk not in the dam’s immediate footprint stood to gain considerably by reaping unearned capital gains from rising land values in the district.

Those proponents have now resurfaced, in the shape of TWSP, with the affable Mike Petersen – CHB farmer and former trade ambassador – at the helm. For sure, previous dam front-men including Andrew Newman (CEO, HB Regional Council), Peter Butler (Mayor, CHB District Council), and Tim Gilbertson (vocal CHB farmer) succeeded spectacularly in alienating dam detractors and supporters alike. It remains to be seen whether Mike is the new messiah, or just another martyr?

Belford firstly points out the already considerable drain on the CHB public’s back pockets by this renewed quest - $450,000 syphoned from both Centralines (the entity which manages CHB’s consumer-owned lines network, and has Ian Walker as Chairperson) and the District Council (headed by his daughter, Mayor Alex Walker, perennial advocate for ‘water security’ – the latest euphemism for ‘mega-irrigation dam’). That’s nearly ½ million dollars of public funds sunk on Ruataniwha v.2 to date – and the spillway has only just opened!

Belford then addresses the Taniwha in the creek – the fact that Ruataniwha v.2 is destined to founder unless the TWSP can obtain the 22 ha of DOC conservation land. In something of an understatement, a 2021 TWSP-commissioned report identifies this goal as being “mission critical”. The TWSP group, not content with tapping into the public purse, are also looking at a land-grab of the public conservation estate.

This leads to an exploration into how legislation to obtain the 22 ha. might be implemented? Firstly, the CHB District Council would need to propose a ‘local bill’, which would then be sponsored by a local MP. Either that, or Central government could simply introduce legislation – this seems less likely, given the hammering Labour are taking in the polls right now and the unwanted controversy that the dam would attract.

All eyes are on Tukituki Labour MP Anna Lorck as being the most likely candidate to sponsor a bill, given her strong advocacy for Ruataniwha v.1, and the fact that the boost she received from Jacinda Ardern’s public goodwill at the last election can no longer be relied upon, having evaporated somewhat, come late-2023.

Intrigue at every turn, indeed, Mr Belford.

(By Trevor Le Lievre, Spokesperson, Wise Water Use)