Cabinet has asked for further consultation with affected parties before considering whether to call in resource consent applications for 16 new dairy farms proposed in the Omarama and Ohau areas.
A decision has to be made by next month.
Minister for the Environment Nick Smith raised the issue at a Cabinet meeting in Wellington yesterday.
Resource consents from Five Rivers Ltd, Southdown Holdings Ltd and Williamson Holdings Ltd are being handled by Environment Canterbury (ECan), but the Government has been under pressure to use the Resource Management Act to call in the applications.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said it was an issue of national significance and, if the applications were called in, ECan would no longer have to decide the fate of the proposals.
Instead, they would be referred to an independent board of inquiry or to the Environment Court, which was better able to consider the full impact of the proposals.
The Environmental Defence Society and Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright have also urged Dr Smith to call in the applications.
Before any resource consent applications can be called in, the Minister for the Environment must consider the extent to which they are of national significance.
The Waitaki District Council has already granted land use consents for the developments.
They were not publicly notified.
An ECan panel of three commissioners is hearing evidence and submissions on water applications for the three proposals.
The three companies also require resource consents to discharge dairy effluent, store dairy effluent in ponds, create cubicle stables, create storage ponds and discharge of contaminants to air from effluent storage.
ECan received more than 5200 submissions on those consents, which are scheduled to heard by the same hearings panel in Christchurch on 16 days spread over four weeks starting from Wednesday, March 10.
An extra week has been provided for from April 19 if needed.
Mr Norman will today and tomorrow learn first hand about the big-dairying plans.
"The aim, basically, is to talk to some of the key players - both those promoting schemes and those who oppose them," he said of his two-day visit.
He also intends meeting some farmers concerned about the developments and to visit the area.
"I've read the consent applications and the rest of the material but it also good to have a good look yourself," he said.
While his visit related to the Omarama-Ohau proposals, intensification of agriculture was going to be an ongoing issue so the information he gathered would be of use in the future.
