Massive Water Rehab Project Celebrates ‘Win For The Environment'
New Zealand's largest managed groundwater rehabilitation project has been given the greenlight to expand.
The community group behind the water improvement scheme in Mid Canterbury is "delighted" it's been given consent to upscale their work to improve groundwater and river quality.
More than two years after it lodged a resource consent application, the Hekeao/Hinds Water Enhancement Trust (HHWET) has been granted consent, with conditions, to expand.
The Trust said in a statement they were "delighted with this decision to grant the consents, which is a win for the environment'.
The group declined to comment further while the independent panel's decision is open to appeal.
HHWET applied for consent to operate Managed Aquifer Recharge and Near River Recharge sites at 37 locations, 15 existing and 22 new sites.
The aquifer sites contain infiltration basins, which act like big leaky ponds.
The basins are filled with high-quality water that seeps down and recharges the groundwater.
This enhances ground and surface water quality and quantity. Near River Recharge is the same but is located in a river's flood plain, so that river flow and quality are enhanced.
The group wanted to use water from Rangitata Diversion Race Management Limited (RDRML) - a 67km long canal that distributes water throughout the Mid Canterbury region.
This required consent to allow the water use as part of the process.
The applications were notified in June 2024 and received 79 submissions - nine opposed and the rest in support.
Te Rūnanga O Arowhenua opposed the consent application on the basis there was "little rational basis for the Panel to take a gamble on such a risky and ineffective proposal, when the downside for important environments and values is so significant'.
Save The Rivers Mid Canterbury also opposed the application as it believed it was better to leave the water in the river, than "use it to cover up the results of intense farm practices'.
After a four-day hearing in December, the independent panel sought additional information from the applicants and independent legal advice.
The panel released its 114-page decision last week that outlines how the panel believes the opposing concerns have been addressed.
The applicants said there would be positive effects on ground water levels and decreased nitrate levels in downgradient waterbodies resulting from the trial, as well as increasing river (surface water) flows and ecological benefits, the decision said.
The panel included additional monitoring conditions to provide greater certainty around the outcomes.
The panel also noted submitters referenced an economic analysis in 2023 that without Managed Aquifer Recharge, it would be an 'economically catastrophic for Mid Canterbury urban and rural communities'.
Submissions touched on the 'unfavourable economic implications' of not meeting targets set through the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and Canterbury Land and Water Plan.
One of those concerns was that additional water would be taken from the Rangitata River by the RDRML to support the Managed Aquifer Recharge use.
The panel determined the consent was about what RDRML's existing allocation could be used for.
Hekeao/Hinds Water Enhancement Trust will use what water is available from the existing take.
'There is no take application before us,' the consent decision states.
'The fact remains however that RDRML will take its full allocation of water.
'If the water is not used for MAR (Managed Aquifer Recharge), it will be used for one or more of the purposes specified in RDRML's consent.
'In this regard, we think it unrealistic for those opposing submitters to invite us to refuse consent on the basis that the water should (and would, they say, if consent is refused) remain in the Rangitata River.'
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