An Environment Canterbury hearing on 110 resource consent applications for water in the upper Waitaki catchment above the Waitaki dam, including for three big dairy farm developments, has been adjourned after hearing evidence and submissions for 56 days.
The hearing, which started on September 21 last year, was spread over 15 weeks to consider 60 applications for water and 50 for land use and discharges.
The applications included five each from Southdown Holdings Ltd, Williamson Holdings Ltd and Five Rivers Ltd, which want to develop a total of 16 dairy farms in the Omarama and Ohau areas with up to 17,850 cows housed in cubicles 24 hours a day from March to October and for up to 12 hours a day from November to February.
The members of the panel - Christchurch lawyer Paul Rogers (chairman), Kaiapoi environmental consultant Mike Bowden, cultural authority Edward Ellison, of the Otago Peninsula, and water quality consultant Jim Cooke, of Wellington - will now decide on the applications.
In the meantime, applicants and Environment Canterbury (ECan) reporting officers are discussing conditions which should be on the consents, to present a joint document outlining the parties' different points of view to the panel on June 11.
Extra evidence, including from the three companies wanting to establish the dairy farms, which put up alternative uses for the land, meant the hearing panel sat for 15 weeks instead of the 10 weeks initially set aside.
The bulk of the hearings were in Christchurch, and some in Twizel.
The 56 days the panel sat did not include the time it spent on site visits.
Even though evidence and rights of reply have been completed, the panel could still reconvene the hearing if it needed to consider further evidence.