The Nevis River water conservation order hearing was told in Cromwell yesterday the Department of Conservation's deal with dam developer Pioneer Generation meant that if the power company gained all the other consents it needed for a dam, the Minister of Conservation would also give consent.
Doc's Otago conservator, Jeff Connell, giving evidence on behalf of the Director-general of Conservation, said Pioneer Generation owned the Craigroy and Ben Nevis pastoral leases, giving it control over the land it needed to proceed with the development, and was presently going through the tenure review programme.
Mr Connell said allowance was made for the power company's plans in the agreement.
The tribunal has been considering an application by the New Zealand and Otago Fish and Game Councils to amend the Nevis River Water Conservation Order, so damming the river or diverting water are banned.
The proposal attracted 248 submissions, most in favour of prohibiting dams.
Mr Connell said if tenure review became a "done deal", as he was confident it would, the agreement would include details of the hydro development proposal for the minister's consent.
In considering the plan, the minister would not "prohibit" the dam or dams but could impose conditions to avoid, remedy or mitigate its adverse effects on the values identified in the landscape protection covenant.
Under the tenure review programme, more than half the land - 10,800ha - would return to the Crown as public conservation land and the rest would be freeholded, subject to a range of protective covenants and access easements.
"If tenure review goes ahead and Pioneer gets all the other consents it needs for the hydro development, the minister can effectively move the [landscape protection] covenants off to one side," Mr Connell said.
Under the agreement, the minister would be contractually obliged to approve the development.
If Pioneer did not get the other consents needed to proceed with the dam, the covenants on the property would remain in force.
The hydro proposal had not been finalised but was likely to result in two new lakes in the valley - one about the size of Lake Hayes and one smaller, he said.
Doc presented evidence at the original water conservation order hearing in 1991 and the existing order did not ban dams on the river.
That aspect of the order was not appealed, Mr Connell said. If the dam was built, the landscape values of the area, rare plants and threatened ecosystems within the dam's footprint would be protected under the tenure review proposal, he said.
Day 7
Tribunal: Richard Fowler (chairman), Carolyn Burns and Rauru Kirikiri.
Application: To amend the existing Water Conservation Order to prevent damming or diversion of the Nevis River.
Players: New Zealand and Otago Fish and Game Councils want the changes, Pioneer Generation and TrustPower among those in opposition.
Yesterday: Evidence heard from Ted and Mereana Loose; Otago Conservator of the Department of Conservation, Jeff Connell; New Zealand Historic Places Trust witnesses Matthew Schmidt, Heather Bauchop and Doug Bray.
Quote of the day: "It is important that we allow rivers to behave in a natural state; that they are allowed to flood, to cleanse debris and sediment from their system.
Not enough attention has been paid in the past to effects that damming can cause" - Ted Loose, of Te Anau.
