Iwi, council in row over streams drying up

Iwi and the regional council in Hawke’s Bay are disputing why streams in the region are drying up this summer.

The council first told RNZ it was a natural occurrence, but said there was more to it after being pushed.

In Bridge Pa¯, near Heretaunga (Hastings), the local kura found hundreds of eels dying in the deep, dried mud which was once their local streams — the Karewarewa and the Paritua.

Nga¯ti Kahungunu environment and natural resources director Ngaio Tiuka said the children tried to save them.

“Quite a few people were capturing the eels that are left in these little pools and digging into the mud, hundreds of them, and relocating them to other places or other waterways where they can survive,” he said.

“It’s a bit of a tragic event, of course they can’t save them all and we’ve got images of quite a number of eels dying but the school was involved in trying to save those.”

The question is — why are the streams drying up? There have been arguments between the iwi and local government.

“We’ve had a disagreement over this and tangata whenua have for a number of years, and through our wha¯nau, through our hapu¯ and through our taiwhenua the anecdote is it’s not a natural occurrence. Perhaps it’s becoming more common, but it’s not a natural occurrence,” Tiuka said.

When first asked about the reasons for the Karewarewa and Paritua streams drying up, the regional council’s chief executive James Palmer said it was mainly down to nature.

“The irrigation is a part of the story, but more fundamentally due to its location and the geology around it, is prone to drying during a dry summer.”

But later, RNZ received a model the council completed a few years ago and showed it to Palmer. The model found over 90 per cent of water was lost in the Karewarewa near Bridge Pa¯ because of pumping for irrigation.

Palmer’s team went back and found groundwater abstraction was likely to be causing the streams to go dry in parts. “There is certainly some question over whether or not it would dry up in summer if there was absolutely no abstraction across the Heretaunga plains.”

The spokesperson for Choose Clean Water, Marnie Prickett, said authorities needed to take a hard look at their current policies.