Life’s work guarding our water resources
For more than 50 years, Russell Howie has been focused on the use, development and protection of New Zealand’s natural water resources.
There aren’t many rivers in the country that he hasn’t worked on.
‘‘The kids used to go crook about the stories that I would tell as we would drive around on our holidays of different rivers.’’
Dunedin-born Howie studied civil engineering at the University of Canterbury and said he was intrigued by rivers, flood flows and their associated hydrology.
‘‘That was what fascinated at the time and I have followed it ever since.
‘‘The fluids side of the work is what fascinated me, it involved hydraulic structures and the design of dams, culverts and control gates.’’
Howie has been appointed an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to environmental resource management.
He spent most of his working life in Wellington and moved to Nelson 12 years ago with wife Helen.
Having worked as an engineer in Dunedin after graduating, he moved to Wellington to join the newly-formed water and soil division of the Ministry of Works in 1966. At the time he recalled there was one large computer that needed a shoebox full of punch cards to run it.
‘‘It would run overnight and analyse the flows in rivers so we used to do the design for flood control schemes right throughout the country and the catchment schemes used to build them.’’
Then, in 1967, when the water and soil conservation act was passed, it saw the introduction of water rights and the beginning of water allocation and water pollution control.
‘‘I developed water quality standards for our rivers, lakes, harbours and coastal waters and then dealt with consents for the water rights that were needed to comply with those.
‘‘I ended up being the author of consents for Huntly power station, New Plymouth power station and major irrigation schemes in Canterbury, the Marsden power station, various other Crown schemes at the time.’’
Howie said at the time, all the waste industries including meatworks and dairy companies all discharged their untreated waste into rivers, lakes and harbours.
‘‘It was a major push to get some treatment on those discharges, we think at the moment that our waterways are in poor condition but it pales into insignificance compared to what it was like at the end of the 1960s.
‘‘Now of course we have different problems with the intensification of land use and different issues have arisen with nutrients, algae and conditions in the rivers and bacteriological qualities as well.’’
When the Ministry of Works was disestablished in 1988, Howie became the environmental manager for the Electricity Corporation before moving on to become a commissioner for the Environment Court in 2000, a role he has maintained ever since.
‘‘We’ve dealt with all sorts of cases of course, water and other planning issues.’’
Howie had also been seconded to several board’s of inquiry including Transmission Gully, the Ruataniwha water storage scheme and the national policy statement on electricity transmission.