Oturehua farmer and member of New Zealand Irrigators Association, Ken Gillespie, said Otago irrigators had a good relationship with the Otago Regional Council (ORC) and feared a Ministry for the Environment proposal to have greater influence over freshwater management would result in a "one size fits all" approach.
Mr Gillespie has made submissions to the council as it prepares changes to its Water Plan, and said with water permit mining privileges to expire in 2021, there was some concern renewing permits could involve the Ministry for the Environment.
"Are they going to use the ORC Water Plan or the Ministry for the Environment [MFE] Water Plan?"
The ORC has started a round of public meetings to discuss possible changes to its Water Plan. An indication of a more hard-nosed approach to water allocation could be seen north of the Waitaki River.
"Environment Canterbury [ECan] restrictions are far more than we could wear here. Irrigators have not got any say with ECan but we have with the ORC."
Mr Gillespie said when his own Hawkdun-Ida Burn Irrigation Company renewed its water rights, it secured support from Fish and Game New Zealand, the Department of Conservation and Ngai Tahu.
"If we get the MFE coming in, that could change everything. We don't need central government involved in water in Otago I believe."
Irrigators and the ORC were well ahead of what the MFE could offer, having agreed to a priority system, minimum flows and developing schemes that work.
In a submission to the MFE earlier this year, the Otago Water Resource Users Group said ministry reference to ad hoc decision-making, incremental creep, and an inability to take a catchment-wide approach to decision-making, was not the case in reality.
Regional councils were required to take those things into account when making resource consent decisions, and to err on the side of caution until they had set minimum flows.
By setting allocation limits and minimum flows as proposed by the MFE, it was circumventing public participation and imposing a process that was not site-specific.
Changing existing consents through national environmental standards, including minimum flows, should not be done without the participation of holders, or outside the context of a particular catchment, with its values and interests.
In its submission, Otago water users say national environmental standards should only apply to under-allocated, high-value bodies of water rather than all bodies of water, and it should not apply to replacement consents.
In tandem with the standards, they said guideline methods should be developed to assess ecological values acceptable to all stakeholders, but with an ability to incorporate new learning.
They fear the MFE's desire to provide certainty, transparency and a cost-effective method was because the standards were not site-specific; however, it disenfranchised users and the public from determining the most appropriate in-stream flow and allocation.