Fish and Game puts $150K to water permits

OTAGO’S Fish and Game Council has set aside $150,000 to help pay for extra costs predicted from the transition of historic water permits to new consents.

The council had become more conscious this year of the extra resources the issue was requiring and decided at its April meeting to allocate up to $150,000 over the next three to five years from its reserves, council chief executive Niall Watson said. The money represented about 10% of the council’s reserves, he said.

The money would pay for external expertise relating to the ‘‘complex hydrology’’ of many consent applications on which Fish and Game was submitting, and things such as planning and legal advice, Mr Watson said.

All historic water rights — which existed through old mining privileges — needed to be replaced with new Resource Management Act consents and the applications were being han dled by the Otago Regional Council, Mr Watson said. All the old water rights will expire in 2021.

Mr Watson said Fish and Game had already spent about $25,000 of reserves on additional technical work required for its sub missions on consent applications over the past three years, and about $105,000 from a national Fish and Game fund relating to its submissions on proposals over the Lindis River minimum flow.

But the ‘‘vast majority’’ of consent applications were still to be made and the extra money was needed as things ‘‘picked up momentum’’, Mr Watson said.

He said ‘‘given the scale of the exercise’’, the $150,000 was a ‘‘reasonably modest sum’’ and would be money well spent.

‘‘People see this [the transfer of permits] as a onceinacentury water reallocation issue that’s really important in terms of Central Otago rivers . . . If we have good information, it will help speed things up; a lack of information can cause more expense in all directions . . . You’ve really got to get good information to get good outcomes . . . the aim is not to end up in formal hearings, and reach agreement before that.’’

pam.jones@odt.co.nz