The reliability of water supplies to existing irrigators on the lower Waitaki was one of the outstanding issues thrashed out with three Environment Canterbury (ECan) commissioners in Christchurch this week.
Before confirming their consent for Meridian Energy to take water from the Waitaki River for its North Bank power scheme, the commissioners have been hearing from Meridian and other parties.
Existing irrigators, including major companies such as the Lower Waitaki, Morven-Glenavy-Ikawai and North Otago, were worried their almost 100% reliable supply of water would be affected when the scheme was built.
That would affect when water was available to irrigators, flowing into farm production and local economies.
They wanted Meridian to guarantee their existing reliability would be safeguarded.
Discussions were held between Waimate and North Otago irrigators and Meridian in an attempt to resolve, but no agreement was reached.
That changed at the ECan hearing yesterday.
Initially, Meridian offered a condition to retain the status quo in terms of flow, without setting any definitive figure.
However, hearing chairman Prof Peter Skelton suggested that, instead of the term status quo, a figure of not less than 150cumecs be used.
The hearing adjourned just after noon while Meridian considered how it would word the condition and whether that would be acceptable to irrigators, and resumed at 2pm.
Meridian came back and agreed to a condition that would ensure existing reliability of supply for irrigators was retained.
That would provide a flow of 152cumecs, which covered the worst-case cut-off point for irrigation on the lower river below Black Point.
However, Meridian's legal counsel Jo Appleyard made it clear that was to ensure the reliability over the past few years, not underwriting 100% reliability of supply to irrigators in the future if conditions changed.
Irrigators' spokesman, Waitaki Valley farmer Matt Ross, was happy with the outcome.
However, farmers still faced uncertainty over future limits on irrigation posed by the Waitaki catchment water allocation regional plan and the approach ECan took to reviewing existing consents in relation to the plan's 150cumecs minimum flow, he said.
The consents approved for Meridian were below that minimum flow, allowing for a monthly variable flow of between 110 and 150cumecs between the Waitaki dam and the Stonewall.
