Mere months into his tenure as interim chief executive Pim Borren wrote to council policy and science general manager Anita Dawe to ask what the council was doing to get a long-delayed report from the Manuherikia River technical advisory group (Tag) in front of councillors.
"The Tag needs a kick along," Dr Borren said in an email dated September 12.
"I think we all know that this is a frustration."
By the end of the year, with a new council in place, it was not clear any progress has been made.
A tranche of emails released by the council after an Otago Daily Times official information request show that last month council staff were planning a "restart" meeting for the technical advisory group after extended delays.
They also show one councillor chasing a report on a hydrology model developed for the river showing what the river would look like in a "natural state" without water extraction for irrigation.
The emails also showed council staff were concerned about delays to the work caused by a single consultant.
The missing scientific work that led to the long-delayed advice report from Tag recalls a tumultuous time in the council’s recent history.
About 17 months ago, on August 25, 2021, council staff asked councillors to note minimum flow values, and the method for determining water take limits, for the highly valued Manuherikia River as work picked up on the council’s forthcoming land and water plan.
Councillors on the day did not note minimum flow values for the river.
Instead of indicating how low the river might go before water users were told to stop taking water from it, councillors called for further scientific study.
At the time, Otago Fish & Game said disputing the strength of the scientific work already done was a delay tactic by the councillors.
The Central Otago Environmental Society launched a petition calling on Environment Minister David Parker to sack the councillors and replace them with commissioners.
Shortly after the 2021 meeting, former council chairwoman Marian Hobbs, who signed the petition to Mr Parker, resigned from the council during the middle of the term.
Later, when Prof Peter Skelton investigated the council last year, at Mr Parker’s request, he said he found it hard to accept the councillors’ decision was solely due to concerns around the science.
Nevertheless, unfinished work by a water engineer appears to have compounded any councillor-initiated delays, the now-released emails show.
After the controversial decision in 2021, Tag’s final report to councillors was first expected in March last year.
Then in May, Ms Dawe said staff were proposing to bring the final report to a July meeting.
However, in June, she said delays to a peer review of hydrology work made an August 10 meeting more likely.
That deadline was also missed.
In the emails, Ms Dawe revealed council science manager Tom Dyer rang the boss of the water engineer concerned about his missing scientific work.
By the end of the year, the same consultant had again disappeared.
As plans were being formed for Tag to reconvene in a December 6 email, Mr Dyer said the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research provided its review of a hydrology statement to the consultant "and he has promptly vanished again — which is either a coincidence, or they have thrown some curve balls".
"We are pushing for an update at the moment.
"We really need a final hydrology statement before we kick things off again."
The emails released by the council also show former councillor Hilary Calvert chasing information on the natural state of the river from at least February last year until after the October election, in which the former councillor did not stand.
One thing the emails do provide is a detailed description of how the matter will be resolved.
Once the scientific work is complete, Tag will consider the work and provide a report to either a committee or the council, which presents flow scenarios for the river and the associated habitat risk for each flow.
At that point Tag will then disband.
The council’s policy team will then consider other factors, such as economic, cultural, and community factors and will recommend a minimum flow to the council.
The council’s land and water plan is due to be notified by the end of this year.
