An environmental group opposed to the new regime for water management in Canterbury is warning that anyone looking to capitalise on the changes will be in for a fight.
Legislation passed under urgency in Parliament on Wednesday paved the way for government-appointed commissioners to take over from elected regional councillors and manage all water issues, including water conservation orders.
The executive director of the Ecologic Foundation, Guy Salmon, says the change is disappointing. He and other environmentalists fear it will be easier for irrigators and developers to take water from protected rivers, but the chairman of the Enviromental Defence Society, Gary Taylor, has a warning for anyone who tries.
"They're in for a battle that would be at least as big as the battle over mining our national parks," he says. "That's a very appropriate analogy here: if you're going to take water out of wild and scenic rivers you're essentially mining a resource that's been set aside for its wild and scenic attributes."
Hopes Government will yet back down
Pointing out that water conservation orders are supposed to be national, not regional, Mr Taylor says the region will now have considerable power over what happens both to existing water orders and to one that's in process on the Hurunui - "which seems to us to be particularly vexatious."
Mr Salmon hopes the Government will realise the strength of public opposition and back down.
"The Government is starting to realise that this whole trajectory that it's on, of exploiting natural resources and going into special places, is not popular with the public," he says.
Issue was used as 'political football'
Irrigation New Zealand chairperson Graeme Sutton applauds the move, as in his view the council has been using the water management issue as a political football.
He says it's important, however, that the commissioners' recommendations are set out in the water management strategy already drawn up for the area, so that irrigated agriculture can be successfully carried out without damage to the environment.
The sacked deputy chair of the regional council, Jo Kane, says organisations that complained about it to the Government need to take some responsibility for a loss of democracy in the region.
She says that Mr Salmon, who once wrote a damning article about the council, should have discussed his concerns with the councillors instead.
Supreme Court willing to hear appeal
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal to decide which of two competing interests can take water for irrigation from Canterbury's Rakaia River.
There has been a protracted legal wrangle between the dairy company Synlait and the Central Plains and Ashburton water trusts.
The Environment Court initially ruled in favour of Central Plains. That finding was overturned by the High Court, then reversed again by the Court of Appeal, which said the water should go to the first fully completed application to the regional council.
The Supreme Court has given Synlait leave to appeal against that ruling.
