From the TDC website:
Tasman District Council is being advised by staff at Thursday’s (11/12) meeting that neither of the funding options for the proposed Waimea Community Dam should be adopted. The analysis of submissions shows that the proposal to fund the project entirely from rates is not affordable for the community nor for the Council.
“My advice to the Council is that the project shouldn’t proceed on the funding basis proposed. I doubt that there is any way of allocating the cost of such a large project on to ratepayers or the direct beneficiaries in a way that is fair and affordable,” said Council CEO Lindsay McKenzie.
“There is still a strong case for augmenting the supply of water available on and around the Waimea Plains,” says Mr McKenzie. “For that reason I am also advising the Council to provide for a dam when it consults on the Long Term Plan 2015-25. My report covers the conditions on which a commitment to a dam could be made.”
The report recommends that submitters concerns about the method of funding the environmental flows be heeded, that further investigation into the best size for a dam be undertaken and external funding be actively sought.
See TDC news item.
Water restrictions are kicking in for the Waimea Plains and areas such as Richmond, Mapua and Ruby Bay from 1 December.
Council notes the Waimea River has fallen to below the consultation trigger of 2,800 litres/sec and is currently running at 2,700 litres/sec and still dropping steadily. Aquifer levels across the district are much lower than last year and also trending downwards.
“The Waimea Plains have had less than 75 percent of normal rainfall for this time of the year and ground conditions are dry. The situation is better in other parts of the district but the Council will continue its monitoring and urges all rural and urban users to be conservative with their water use.”
Read full TDC news item
See current River Flow Measurements
Further links to Water Shortage Direction and General Water Saving Hints
Along with numerous other submitters MHRA presented their recent submission to the Waimea Dam funding consultation at a council hearing today. We presented the concerns of local residents about rates increases, perceived uneven distribution of benefits, and the overall affordability of the project.
Council took interest in our water supply survey and how we ran it.
Cr Norriss pointed out as a clarification on our wording regarding the Dovedale water scheme that any calculation of affordability of improving the scheme's source ($1.6M cost mentioned) is part of a closed account and thus of course not directly related to funding decisions of other projects such as the Waimea Dam.
These are the initial results of our survey on the issue of local water supply (after three weeks). For this survey we have been polling 600 households in the Moutere catchment, representing a population of approximately 1,500.
At the time of this evaluation, 12% of households polled have participated in the survey.
The purpose of the survey was to find out whether residents are satisfied with the current supply situation, what areas need to be improved, and whether there is interest in creating a new community-owned supply scheme as alternative to the Dovedale scheme. The survey also contained questions to indicate support or opposition to the Waimea Community Dam as currently proposed by TDC.
In his own submission to the current Waimea Dam consultation, local resident John Clifton presents his thoughts on what he thinks unfair and inequitable distribution of cost versus benefit in the current funding models.
His point is that by far the largest share of water is used by a relatively small number of commercial irrigators. As an alternative he suggests the introduction of a volume-related pricing structure for irrigation water which would:
Read John's full submission here.
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