Ngai Tahu's patience is running out as it finds it increasingly difficult to carry out its role as guardian of the cultural values of the Waitaki River and catchment.
Yesterday, it appeared again at a resource consent hearing in Oamaru by an Environment Canterbury (ECan) hearings panel considering 56 applications to take water in the catchment below the Waitaki dam.
Waihao rununga upoko (leader) Te Wera Edwin King said Ngai Tahu was increasingly unable to carry out its role in the Waitaki catchment.
"We continue to participate in these resource management processes, but we are continually disappointed with the outcomes," he said.
Ngai Tahu Trust Board member David Higgins said Ngai Tahu's values were being continually desecrated.
The Waitaki catchment water allocation regional plan specifically recognised those values - "but I have seen little, if anything, from the applicants or ECan that addresses or even discusses those matters."
He told the hearings panel: "The decisions you make about the further use and allocation of the Waitaki River, Hakataramea River and all the other rivers . . . will impact on my people for generations to come."
Ngai Tahu opposed the applications, as it did last year, for Meridian Energy's north bank tunnel concept power scheme and the joint Meridian Energy Ltd-South Canterbury Irrigation Trust Hunter Downs irrigation scheme.
Mr King said Ngai Tahu had assisted with the development in 2005 of the allocation plan which set a minimum environmental flow of 150 cumecs for the river.
"Yet here we are again today . . . arguing the same things," he said.
Ngai Tahu's legal counsel Malcolm Wallace said no consultation had been carried out with Ngai Tahu over the effect of taking more water from the lower Waitaki River and its "unique relationship" with the catchment.
Mr Wallace said there had been no consultation with Ngai Tahu by applicants, no attempt to undertake a cultural assessment, and a failure to carry out comprehensive ecological assessment of localised and cumulative effects.
There remained too many uncertainties over the cultural and ecological effects of allowing such a dramatic change.
ECan should have called for a cultural impact assessment, particularly into the effects on the Hakataramea River.
Some applicants had looked to Ngai Tahu to give evidence on those issues.
However, applicants and ECan officers must deal with them.
Ngai Tahu opposed "a dramatic reduction in the minimum flow" from the plan's 150 cumecs to the 100 cumecs being sought.
"After all, the plan is barely off the presses and the applicants seek to alter a fundamental outcome of the plan," he said.
The Lower Waitaki River Management Society opposed granting any consents which did not comply with the Waitaki catchment water allocation regional plan - in particular the 150 cumecs minimum flow.
Society member Ian McIlraith said the society wanted to secure the Waitaki River environment from the fate of many of Canterbury's Rivers - over-allocation and/or degraded quality.
"This outcome seems most likely when we fail to accept the extent to which our socio-economic systems depend on a healthy environment and, when allocating water, we fail to act with sufficient caution and humility," he said.
Some issues the society had identified as important were:
• An effective environmental flow regime that protected the river.
• Robust monitoring of irrigation, linking cause and effect and underpinning enforcement provisions.
• Monitoring and reporting provisions to ensure targets were achieved.
• A clear picture of the baseline environment and river conditions from which changes could be gauged.
