Concerns interim permits could last more than six years

Photo: ODT files.
Photo: ODT files.
The Ministry for the Environment will support an interim water plan to manage hundreds of historical water takes in Otago as long as replacement consents are not issued for more than six years.

In six years’ time new national freshwater standards will come into force, setting the framework for the issuing of all water take permits.

Several hundred people, many in Central Otago, hold historic mining rights that expire later this year to take water for their businesses.

The Otago Regional Council has developed a plan for issuing new water take consents for those people, before the new national standards come into force.

Under the plan some of the new permits would be interim six-year permits, and some could be for longer.

The Environment Court will decide whether the council’s plan should go ahead in its current form.

A seven-week Environment Court hearing is into its second week, and the court heard from the Ministry for the Environment’s lead counsel yesterday.

Rosemary Dixon told the court the ministry supported the plan by and large, but there were issues to address.

The main issue was around a proposed "non-complying pathway" — namely that under the regional council’s present plan, in certain circumstances, some people could be issued a permit for more than the six-year interim period, meaning they would potentially then not comply with the new standards when they came into force.

It meant environmental degradation could continue, she said.

"It deflects the whole point in fact, that Parliament said these deemed permits will expire on October 1, 2021.

"What this will mean is that, actually they don’t expire ... so whatever issues are associated with the deemed permits, and everybody accepts there are many, basically continue."

In his evidence Tonkin and Taylor principal planner Timothy Ensor, on behalf of the minister, said the intention was that the majority of new and replacement water takes would be granted for a six-year duration.

However, many resource consents were being applied for as a non-complying activity and some of those applications sought a term of 15 to 35 years.

The ministry wanted the proposed non-complying pathway to be deleted and any non-complying activities to be prohibited, his report said.

Ministry for the Environment sustainable land use director Keita Kohere’s evidence was that the ministry had concerns about the rigour of the notified non-complying pathway.

"The Minister seeks to ensure the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 is given effect not just on paper in the new plan, but more importantly, given effect in practice by addressing over-allocation and bring waterways to a healthy state within a generation.

"This will not be possible if significant volumes of water are locked up in existing consents until 2035 and beyond," her report said.

Changes humans had made to water levels, flows and courses in rivers and aquifers were contributing to the declining health of Otago’s freshwater. Low river flows reduced habitat for freshwater species, and journeys of native fish in streams were difficult or impossible in low flows, or with barriers in rivers and streams.

"I am concerned that a plan change that enables granting of a substantial portion of applications to replace deemed permits for durations over six years is contrary to the Minister’s recommendation to prepare an interim planning and consent framework to provide short-term consents until [a] new regional policy statement and land and water regional plan are completed."

The hearing continues in Dunedin today.

molly.houseman@odt.co.nz

 

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