"Sometimes I'd like to crawl into a black hole somewhere and let it all flow over me."
But the past year has been another eventful one for the crusader to preserve the lower river against power development when Meridian Energy Ltd first mooted its giant Project Aqua power scheme.
The $1.2 billion scheme would have involved building a 60km-long power canal on the south side of the Waitaki Valley from Kurow almost to State Highway 1 to use up to 340cumecs from the river with six powerhouses generating up to 3000GWh of electricity a year.
Meridian scrapped the proposal in March 2004, then went on to propose the north bank tunnel concept (NBTC) power scheme on the north side of the valley between the Waitaki dam and Stonewall, near Ikawai.
The latest scheme is to is to take up to 260cumecs of water from Lake Waitaki into a 34km-long tunnel with one powerhouse generating between 1100 and 1400GWh a year.
Waitaki First took a breather after the demise of Project Aqua, but then re-entered the fray over the NBTC scheme.
In 2007, it opposed the scheme at an Environment Canterbury hearing in Christchurch.
This year, Waitaki First renewed the fight at a reconvened hearing, only to lose out with a final decision in late December which granted four water-only resource consents to Meridian for the scheme.
But the fight is not over - next year, Waitaki First will go to the Environment Court to challenge the decision.
Over Christmas, Dr Brookes has been taking a break, going to Queenstown for a few days on and then tending to the fruit trees on their Awamoko lifestyle block, which would have overlooked the up-to-20m-high and 186m-wide canal had Project Aqua been built.
Dr Brookes thought Waitaki First, along with other groups and individuals, had done enough to convince the three commissioners considering the NBTC resource consents to decline them.
She was "gobsmacked" when Meridian got approval. But despite her reference to "a black hole", the fight will go on.
"People are getting tired," she said about the campaign.
Dr Brookes is still convinced that the fight can be won. She never thought it had ended when Meridian cancelled Project Aqua.
"I never really expected Meridian to go away."
And she can understand that . . . why Meridian would not want a competitor in the electricity generation industry to build a power scheme below the eight power stations it already has on the Waitaki River.
She also understands Meridian's desire to control all the water that comes down the river.
But nonetheless she still feels the commissioners' decision granting NBTC consents was wrong, and is willing to continue on to prove that.
That will mean going to the Environment Court, but she is not sure whether it will be as far as the High Court on points of law if the fight is not won.
"I don't think we have the financial resources to do that, but there may be other groups who can."
The effects of NBTC on the "land environment" is far less than Project Aqua would have been. However, Dr Brookes maintains its effect on the river environment would still be major.
That is why there is no suggestion of her "letting it all flow over me".
Dr Helen Brookes
Age: Won't say
Lives: Georgetown
Holds: PhD
Positions held: Waitaki First chairwoman, Waitaki Power Trust chairwoman, Awamoko water scheme committee chairwoman. Also former Waitaki district councillor..
