North Otago Federated Farmers plans to tackle Rodney Hide over the "sheer frustrations" farmers are experiencing with Environment Canterbury.
A move by the Waitaki, Waimate, Mackenzie, Timaru and Ashburton District Councils to break away from ECan and form a new regional council has been discussed by the branch.
President Robert Borst said newly appointed Local Government Minister Rodney Hide wanted to know about some of the issues and he wondered if an opportunity existed for the branch to write to him, outlining farmers' frustrations.
Some documented cases could be highlighted and it was an opportunity to apply some pressure.
It would ensure Mr Hide understood major issues existed, Mr Borst said.
Consent monitoring
The branch says it will use the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act to request information on how the Otago Regional Council calculates its charges for the monitoring of consents - but the ORC says it does not have to go to such lengths.
Mr Borst said many farmers had got "quite a fright" about their monitoring charges.
The bills had created much debate as to how the council came up with the figures.
Mr Borst said attempts to find out how the charges were calculated had met with little success and farmers in the Kakanui Valley had decided, as a group, to halt payments.
When contacted, the council's resource management director, Selva Selvarajah, said the Official Information Act was not required to obtain the information.
If requests were sent in writing, information as to how the charges were derived would be provided.
The charges were not just set as a "one-way-traffic" process and were reached through the Local Government Act process, Dr Selvarajah said.
Every year, the council put a draft annual plan out for submissions, and in the draft annual plan 2008-09, those charges were indicated.
The charges were then compiled into a leaflet and sent to consent holders in the region.
It was not appropriate for staff to get into debates about fees at public meetings, he said.
