Farmers have been given a clear message to use water efficiently, with the release this week of the first Environment Canterbury resource consent decision on water use in the upper Waitaki catchment.
Large capital investment may be required by farmers and irrigation companies to meet efficiency targets.
Six resource consents have been granted to the Upper Waitaki Community Irrigation Company for an unusually short period of five years.
The company had asked for 35 years.
During the five years, the efficiency of the scheme is be investigated and a plan put in place for improvements.
The panel was critical of the efficiency of the existing scheme, despite the company proposing improvements.
The criticism was of both the delivery of water and on-farm use.
At the same time the panel acknowledged making improvements would "potentially require significant investment and time" by the company and its farmers.
The company for 40 years has used water from Lake Waitaki to irrigate 1925ha on the south side of the Waitaki River between Kurow and Duntroon.
The renewal process had been going on since 1999 and involved a hearing process which started in September 2009.
In the consent, the panel also reduced the annual volume of water from the 26.3 million cubic metres applied for to 22 million cubic metres between August 15 and May 30 each year.
The scheme uses 30km of race, 9km of pipes and predominantly border dyke irrigation.
The company has 62 shareholders (irrigators), but most of the water is used by three major dairy farms.
The panel said the application raised the issue of efficient distribution and use of water.
The company acknowledged that needed to improve.
It put forward a three-step proposal over 12 years.
The proposal started with a monitoring programme to identify weak points in distribution and identify water demand and requirements.
The final step would review what had been done and continue plans to reduce the amount of water needed.
Making improvements would involve significant expenditure and disruption to farming operations and would need to take place outside the irrigation season, the company said.
However, despite the proposal from the company, the panel's view was it had done little to improve water efficiency.
"Nor has it provided evidence that it is taking a responsible attitude to its use of water and is seeking to continually improve the technical efficiency of the use of water," the panel said.
It put conditions on the consent requiring the company to introduce on-farm efficiencies, including individual farm and scheme environmental management plans.
The short-term consent period of five years, the panel hoped, would act as an incentive to the company to urgently undertake steps to improve efficiency.
The panel is Christchurch lawyer Paul Rogers (chairman), environmental consultant Mike Bowden (Kaiapoi), cultural authority Edward Ellison (Otago Peninsula) and water quality consultant Jim Cooke (Wellington).
