More irrigation is needed in the Hakataramea Valley to secure its future, improve its environment and help prevent big dust storms removing soil, Hakataramea Valley farmer Bob Sutton said yesterday.
"This valley needs innovative, well-educated people and their families to develop and secure its future," he said.
Mr Sutton outlined the practical benefits to farmers and the valley's environment to a hearings panel appointed by Environment Canterbury (ECan) to consider 56 resource consent applications to use water from the lower Waitaki River and its tributaries below the Waitaki dam.
He represented Haka Valley Irrigation Ltd, which wants two consents to pump 1cumec of water from the Waitaki River and pipe it into the valley to spray irrigate up to 1875ha on six farms, and an application for his Tironui Farm.
About 20 other new or renewal applications in the Hakataramea Valley are before the hearings panel.
Only 50ha of Mr Sutton's 626ha farm is irrigated.
If consents are granted, 550ha could be irrigated.
Winds and gales caused dust storms, some lasting several days and enough to obscure large areas.
Soil was lifted because of droughts, dry soil loosened by stock, frost heave, drilling-cultivation and thunderstorms on bare ground.
In his view, dust storms were a major contributor to nutrients in waterways.
Irrigation would enable farmers to improve and maintain pasture cover, developing healthier soils, reducing wind erosion and the transfer of nutrients.
At present, stock was grazed in gullies and on the banks of springs and streams, because the pasture there was vital during droughts.
With increased irrigation, these areas could be retired from gazing and fenced from stock.
He acknowledged irrigation generally led to more intensive land use, but said farmers would be bound by farm management plans, a condition of any resource consents.
If farmers breached those plans, punishment could extend to losing their water supply and, possibly, their shares, he said.
Environmental engineer Lynn Torgerson said more irrigation would result in relatively small increases in nitrogen and phosphate in the Hakataramea River.
She encouraged all farmers in the valley to form a stream care group to initiate a Living Streams programme with ECan.
The applicants are part of the Mid River New Applicants Group, representing individuals seeking resource consents for water in the Hakataramea Valley, the lower Waitaki River and its tributaries between the Waitaki dam and Black Point.
The Waitaki catchment water allocation plan set a minimum environmental flow of 150cumecs in the lower Waitaki River and allocated 150 million cubic metres a year of water for agricultural and horticultural use between the Waitaki dam and Black Point.
Senior planner Nick Boyes said most of the consent applications between the Waitaki dam and Black Point did not comply with the minimum flow nor the annual allocation, but he believed they could be granted without any potential effects on the plan's integrity.
