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Research and Monitoring Charge Proposed for Water

Thursday, 11 March 2010 12:27 p.m.

Environment Southland proposes to introduce a new annual charge onto resource consents for taking water, which will reduce the amount that the general ratepayer pays towards scientific investigations and monitoring the use of the region’s aquifers and waterways.
Chairman Stuart Collie said that the proposal would be included in the Draft Annual Plan, which will be adopted by the Council in a fortnight and then be open for public consultation.
Environment Southland presently spends $1.72 million of the general rate on monitoring the region’s water resources to manage the effects of abstraction and other consented and permitted uses that may impact on the region’s waterways.
Chief Executive Ciaran Keogh said that much of this work would continue to be funded from the general rate because it benefitted the wider community and was required by legislation. However, the Council has established that $900,000 of its operating expenses are required because of the consented abstraction of water from rivers and aquifers. These relate specifically to scientific investigations and monitoring the region’s ground and surface water supplies.
“The Council considers that it is appropriate that the parties who have exclusive access to water should meet at least a proportion of the costs incurred to manage it,” Mr Collie said.  It is proposed that all commercial activities – ranging from hydro-electric power stations to dairy sheds but excluding human and stock drinking water supplies – would incur the charge.
Town water supplies and community stock water schemes would only incur a half charge as these have a mix of commercial and dairy shed supplies along with the residential consumers. 
Mr Keogh said there was no reason for the research and monitoring charge to have an impact on household rates charged by the City and District Councils. Each council could recover the charge through its water charges on commercial water supplies. The level of charge proposed for each town equates to approximately $1 per resident per year. For example, the Southland District would pay a total of $26,563 for all of its town water supplies, with the Gore District Council paying a total of $17,500.
Environment Southland’s proposal includes a minimum charge of $100 for each consented water take, with a maximum charge of $5000 for groundwater takes and $50,000 for those from surface water. This will have effect of reducing the regional rate across all properties in Southland.
“The region’s groundwater, springs, streams and rivers are all part of one system,” Mr Collie said.  “What one person takes and uses is not available for anyone else to use.  It is even more complicated than that because where one person has a consent to take water, that water is not available for anyone else whether it is used or not because the resource consent process acts like a booking system.
“The entire regional economy is dependent on use of the region’s water supplies.  We’ve seen a skyrocketing increase in demands placed on these resources in the past decade. These demands have bought considerable wealth to the region but we are now at the point where great care must be taken with the resource to ensure that we do not destroy the golden goose.
“Science and planning and policy work along with tighter management is now required to enable the region’s economy to continue to enjoy the benefits of this precious resource.”
As the graph below shows, growth in demand for water is such that all resource consents combined allow over three hundred thousand tonnes of water to be removed every day from the ground and surface water resources of the Mataura Valley.  Stock water supplies are not included in these figures.
Mr Collie said that submissions on the Draft Annual Plan would be open for six weeks and he urged anyone with a view on the proposed charges to send in their comments. “We need to hear from those who support these charges as much as those who may be opposed to it.”

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