ECan attacks: Why the Gov did it

Christchurch's upcoming October local council elections would have given Canterbury people a chance to have their say on how their ECan councillors were performing. Instead, that chance was lost with the Government passing an Act to take away Canterbury's democratically elected councillors.

The Government's stated aim was to improve water management. In practice, it was more about accelerating irrigation development.

Water Conservation Orders (WCO) are our closest equivalent to national parks for rivers. They exist on the Rakaia, Rangitata and Ahuriri Rivers and a Special Tribunal had recommended one for the South Branch of the Hurunui. The ECan Act allows appointed commissioners to amend existing orders. It takes the Hurunui process back to square one with new decision making criteria which emphasise economic matters.

These changes benefit Trustpower which seeks to use Lake Coleridge and the Rakaia to irrigate around 60,000 ha. in mid Canterbury, and the Hurunui Water Project with its proposed dams on Lake Sumner and the South Branch.

The attack on WCOs has also battered the innovative Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) because of the breach of trust it represents to environmental and recreational interests. ECan has led this innovative process, working with MAF on behalf of central government, local authorities, the Canterbury District Health Board, and the range of water stakeholders.

The CWMS seeks to identify any common ground around the scale and location of future irrigation development, the environmental and the land use constraints within which it should occur, and priorities for environmental restoration. Whether it will deliver on the environmental front now remains to be seen.

While Ministers lambasted ECan for lacking an operative regional plan for water, 19 years after the RMA became law there is still no operative national policy statement on water and few national environmental standards. Progress here by central government, and a return to regional democracy before 2013 would be welcome.

[Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/94729149@N00/2118467423]