Timing of dam filling deemed ‘inappropriate’ by group of irrigators
The filling of the Waimea Dam, when there could be a ban on taking water ahead, has been lambasted as “inappropriate” by a group of irrigators who have opposed the dam from the outset.
Brian Halstead, representing the Waimea Irrigators and Water Users Society, said the dam would be operational in March, but by that time, the need for the water wouldn’t be there, as most of the fruit would have already been harvested.
However, there were still three months to go, and businesses needed water to survive, he said.
“If the Tasman District Council was doing their job, they would be releasing water now,” Halstead said. “But they can’t because they are testing the dam.”
Halstead said it was an “inappropriate” time to fill the dam, because that was modifying the flow of the rivers, and it was the flow of the rivers which dictated the rationing and orders to cease taking water.
Withholding the water was potentially hastening rationing or a ban, which the Waimea Irrigators and Water Users Society didn’t believe was enforceable as the council hadn’t “maintained the natural flow of the river”.
If the dam was a quarter full, he said, that meant there were 3.5 million cubic meters of water contained while it was being tested.
“What we want to know is, if it gets serious and there's a cease take on the horizon, how does the council wish to use the stored water? Are they going to release it? Regardless of the trigger levels, the water is there.
“We believe they have to release it, because it rightfully belongs to the aquifers and the rivers.”
Tasman District Council communications manager Chris Choat said the dam was in the process of commissioning and was not operational in terms of resource consents.
The dam was currently 75% full and had not reached the spill level, he said.
The only key requirement for Waimea Water Limited (WWL) during this stage was to release the minimum flow into the river below the dam, Choat said.
WWL were doing that and had been releasing “slightly more” than the minimum flow, which was set at the mean annual low flow at the dam site.
The minimum flow was higher than what the natural flow would be in drought conditions at the dam site if the dam was not there – so there was a benefit to all water users on the Waimea Plains, he said.
WWL chief executive Mike Scott told Stuff in December that since October, they had been at minimum flow, and had been “storing everything we can”.
The dam would likely be finished around March or April, though the “hesitation” around that was if shareholders would like water over the dry summer, it may be released, which would further delay the project.
“We have maintained environmental flow, and my understanding is that the rivers downstream have also kept the recharge at normal sort of rates.”
Asked if the stored water would have to be released if dry weather continued, Scott said that was a “question for the Tasman District Council”.
The council, however, in a press release, wrote that any higher release than the minimum flow below the dam was “a decision for WWL”.
The dam, a public private partnership between the council and Waimea Irrigators, is the first large dam to be constructed in New Zealand in 25 years.