Dam consents confirmed

Brent Walton. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
Brent Walton. PHOTO: SUPPLIED
A decade-long battle for a huge water storage dam near Oxford has made it out of the courts.

Waimakariri Irrigation Ltd (WIL) has had consents confirmed for the dam, but a final decision on whether to build it could be some time off.

Chief executive Brent Walton said the Environment Court’s confirmation of WIL’s six consents was a big step.

"There’s a very long list of conditions, so we’ve got quite a bit of work to do," Mr Walton said.

"We will now put together a construction contract and then go back to our shareholders for final approval.

"We will take it at a very measured pace and put some thought into managing the consent conditions."

Consents covered discharge, storage fuel, stormwater discharge and land use, as well as dam construction.

A water storage dam would give farmer-shareholders about 90% reliability, compared with 75% from the present "run-of-the-river" consent, Mr Walton said.

It has been a long journey for WIL, which bought the land at Wrights Rd, near Oxford, in 2007.

It was first granted a building consent in June 2013 for an 8.2million cubic metre water storage facility on its 120ha at Burnt Hill.

The dam would augment supplies from the irrigation scheme when run-of-river supply was limited by high or low flows.

The consent was approved despite objections from 115 of the 160 submitters. Residents group the Eyre Community Environmental Safety Society (ECESS) then appealed to the Environment Court.

Spokeswoman Catherine Ballinger said her group was proud of what it had achieved.

"ECESS managed to change a lot of things and the conditions have made the dam proposal a lot safer than it otherwise would have been."

Improvements included strengthening the wall design with a higher-grade lining, and warning systems had changed.

"We were never opposed to water storage," she said.

"Our concern was always about public safety.

A concern for the society was how conditions would be enforced, so Ms Ballinger welcomed the requirement for a community liaison group."

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