Council Calls For Water Harvesting Priority

Tararua is calling for water harvesting in the district to be a priority for the Horizons Regional Council ground water mapping programme.

Presenting Tararua District Council’s submission to the regional council’s draft community plan Tararua mayor Maureen Reynolds said that the identification of potential harvest volumes would be of “large value” to the districts.
Urban communities were affected by the proposed Horizons One Plan because of the allocation of surface water takes.

“Such impounded supplies do not need to feed directly into the town supply but may be used to provide the continuation flows that the (Horizons) One Plan is seeking,” she said.
Tararua District Council commended the work to date on the Regional Transport programme and acknowledged regional council support “for the regionally significant Pahiatua-Palmerston route upgrade,” the mayor said.

Comment was made on the Horizons proposal to divest the Port of Napier shares to the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.
Whilst acknowledging that the shareholding was a government allocation in 1989 the council asked that the proceeds be returned to the Territorial Authorities “that originally paid the rates towards these port companies.”

The council believed it would help to alleviate “the continuing pressure on rates” if the proceeds could be directly used in offsetting proposed capital programmes.
Whilst increased funding for possum control was supported Tararua “had concerns” regarding the implications of reducing the regional contribution to the Animal Health Board for the TB vector control programme.

“This relates to the impact regionally TB will have on the primary industry that supports our local economy,” the submission stated.

The council also called for an amendment to Horizons “Resource Consent and Pollution Management” strategy and a statement that “without resource consents, discharges into our rivers and air onto our land would be uncontrolled.”


However, Tararua pointed out that the RMA already permitted certain activities providing they complied with certain standards.

Territorial Authorities could therefore avoid significant costs, along with compliance if the regional council permitted additional activities, Tararua argued.