A Waitaki Valley dairy farmer has defended the efficiency of the irrigation scheme he gets water from, saying he and others have spent "mega bucks" on improvements.
Roger Slee, a former chairman of the Upper Waitaki Community Irrigation Company, which supplies his dairy farms, and one of three major shareholder in the 40-year-old scheme on the south side of the Waitaki River, was angry about criticism of the scheme's efficiency from Environment Canterbury around the delivery of water and on-farm use.
He said yesterday dairy farmers had been unfairly targeted, when there were other users of water.
"We [dairy farmers] have made a lot of improvements over the years, which has cost mega bucks to do," he said.
The Otago Daily Times reported on Saturday the 1925ha scheme had been granted six resource consents by Environment Canterbury to take water from Lake Waitaki for irrigation between Kurow and Duntroon.
The consents were only for five years, instead of the 35 years sought, and the scheme was criticised for being inefficient, despite the company putting forward a three-step programme for improvements.
Mr Slee's dairy farms on the scheme had upgraded their on-farm systems to spray irrigation and had more efficient wide dykes.
"It's not the dairy farms who are the drag or bogeyman. Everyone likes to kick the old dairy farmer these days and I'm coming to their defence," he said.
When the Ministry of Works started building the scheme about 50 years ago it used a highly effective siphon system to take water from Lake Waitaki over the Waitaki dam. It had been promoted as "a 1000-year scheme".
"Why fix something that is not broken," Mr Slee asked.
He said he had not been approached by Environment Canterbury officers and consultants, who prepared reports on the scheme, despite his long involvement with it.
The volume of water the scheme could use each irrigation year had been "cut back". At its reduced rate of 22 million cubic metres, the take represented only one thousandth of the flow of the Waitaki River.
Irrigation had also brought environmental benefits, particularly for wildlife.
Mr Slee said renewal of the resource consents had been on hold since 1999. It was impossible to make further improvements when the future supply of water was uncertain, he said.
The five-year term for the consents compounded that, with shareholders and banks unlikely to invest more money with such a short-term guarantee in place.
