Water quality in the Hakataramea River catchment remains a major worry for the Central South Island Fish and Game Council, but it has also found some positives in new resource consents which will see major expansion in irrigation in the valley.
At this stage, the council has not decided whether to challenge in the Environment Court the Environment Canterbury (ECan) decisions to grant the consents, chief executive Jay Graybill said recently.
An ECan hearings panel has granted eight applicants 25 resource consents to irrigate about 3300ha in the Hakataramea Valley.
The resource consents, all granted for a 35-year term, were to take, divert and use water, as well as land use consents to construct storage dams and ponds and build a new irrigation scheme.
Most were to harvest and store water for irrigation during high flows in the catchment using a total of 2.6 cumecs from the Waitaki River, Hakataramea River and its tributaries.
Mr Graybill said council staff had "a lot to go through" to study the decisions and conditions in detail.
It had made submissions during the consents hearing on the effect on the fishery in the catchment, including angling and habitat, and water quality.
"We still have concerns about the water quality effects long term of more intensive land use resulting from irrigation," he said.
Conditions on all consents provided for research into water quality to establish a baseline, then ongoing monitoring of water quality across the whole catchment.
That would provide information on any deterioration in water quality which, tied to review conditions in the consents, would hopefully mean action could be taken.
Mr Graybill also said that applicants initially proposed taking water from the Hakataramea River and tributaries, but had modified their applications to water harvesting and storage during high flows, which would maintain minimums and variable flows.
Other positives Mr Graybill identified in conditions were a requirement to fence stock off 12m away from waterways, fish screens on most intakes, robust farm management plans, maintaining minimum flows and allocation limits in the Waitaki catchment water allocation regional plan and flow sharing.
The 12m fencing of waterways was a far greater distance than normal and provided a greater buffer for the removal of nutrients and contamination before it reached the water.
