Gore council seeks legal opinion

The Gore District Council has sought a legal opinion about whether one of its councillors has a conflict of interest.

But that councillor, Graham Sharp, is adamant he doesn’t have a conflict only ‘‘the best interests of the people of Gore and the farmers of Knapdale at heart’’. Sharp is opposed to a new well for the town’s water supply being drilled at Coopers Wells, and voiced his opinion at a meeting to launch the council’s Water Taskforce Action Plan last week.

He was concerned a new well would lead to the well on his own farm, and those of his neighbours, running dry. Coopers Wells is the main source of household water in Gore.

Yesterday Sharp said: ‘‘I have no conflict of interest at all and the council can do what it likes on its own land. I can’t stop that. I have no worries, he [Gore district mayor Tracy Hicks] can do what he likes, my conscience is clear.’’

Sharp said he knew of at least 13 other water sources around Gore that the council could use instead of Coopers Wells, and said the council had failed to put infrastructure in to provide a further water source for the town.

Sharp took legal action after the council designated 14ha of farmland he owned around Coopers Wells as a water supply and protection area in the district plan, before reaching a confidential agreement with the council in 2015. Part of that arbitrary decision is that the council would supply him with water if the well on his farm dried up, he said.

Council chief executive Steve Parry said on Thursday the council had sought a legal opinion because Sharp owns a farming operation next door to Coopers Wells and that could impede him in being able to impartially and fairly consider the issue on behalf of ratepayers.

Parry wouldn’t say what the legal opinion was, except that it was ‘‘quite clear cut.’’

The legal opinion would be discussed at the next meeting of the Finance and Policy committee, and a copy of the legal opinion will be given to councillor Sharp

before that meeting.

At the meeting, Sharp said he was opposed to the new well being drilled because it risked ‘‘over pumping’’ the aquifer, but some councillors said the resource consent process would guard against that happening.

Environment Southland director of policy, planning and regulatory services Vin Smith said the Gore District Council was granted consents to investigate new bore locations, and to construct a bore at the Coopers Well site and undertake a pump test from that bore. ‘‘At this stage, we have not received an application from Gore District Council to abstract groundwater for community water supply.’’

Smith said when an application to take water is lodged, an Environment Southland consent officer will determine which groundwater zone the abstraction is from, and then consider existing allocations and how much is requested in the consent application. ‘‘A lot of information is required before a consent is granted, and we have to consider the effects on local streams, and interference on existing bores among other things.’’

Smith said a new well in the general area around Cooper’s Wells won’t necessarily mean that the council will increasingly have to pump water from the river, as it does now when the aquifer does not recharge in dry conditions.

‘‘It all depends on the circumstances, and would be based on testing of the well and calculated effects. Both our Regional Water Plan and the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan allow for some impacts on neighbouring wells. At this stage we don’t have anything to go on to supply more detailed information, but it’s likely that the granting of such a consent would warrant scientific or external review.’’