Council resource management director Selva Selvarajah responded to reported comments by Fish and Game that it no longer enjoyed ''affected party status'' under the Resource Management Act, entitling it to automatic notification whenever the council considers a resource consent affecting waterways.
The RMA defines affected parties as those who might experience an adverse effect generated by the proposed activity that will be greater than, or significantly different from, the effect on the general public.
The RMA also allows councils discretion in deciding whether there are affected parties associated with a consent application. They must be guided by their own discretion, the rules in their plans, and the RMA itself.
If the council decides there are no affected parties, or that they have given written approval, the application is ''non-notified''.
Dr Selvarajah said the council would continue to apply these provisions case by case when deciding affected party status. Fish and Game would sometimes fall into that category.
''Each consent application is carefully considered in terms of who is likely to be adversely affected. We then notify those parties or agencies and advise them to get the written approval of those parties. This practice hasn't changed and will continue,'' he said.
Council staff regularly forwarded decisions on surface water and related consents to Fish and Game for its information.
''However, we cannot give a 100% assurance that Otago Fish and Game will always be consulted as an adversely affected party for every waterway application we receive,'' Dr Selvarajah said.
''This applies particularly when the effects may be minimal or even non-existent because the applicant has proposed measures to minimise or avoid adverse effects in the consent proposal.''
Several applicants had expressed dissatisfaction with the time Fish and Game took to respond to their consent applications, he said.
Council staff had been advising people to send their applications to Fish and Game for approval at the outset if they were likely to have adverse effects, to help speed up that part of the process.