Hurunui Welcomes Shift of Water Conservation Order Debate From Court to Regional Council

The Hurunui District Council is throwing its full weight behind the Environment Canterbury and Improved Water Management Bill passed under urgency yesterday.

The Bill includes changes to water conservation order (WCO) controls in the region which will see these matters now handled by new Environment Canterbury commissioners, following the sacking of the 14 elected members of the Canterbury Regional Council this week.

Mayor Garry Jackson is applauding the change which he says will finally give the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, which his Council wholeheartedly supports, the necessary legislative muscle. “Government has clearly recognised the need to align the water conservation order process in Canterbury with the vision and principles of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy where issues of landscape, environment and ecological values are well recognised. “We don’t see this as interfering with process but rather as an efficient and expeditious way of protecting the environment and meeting people’s needs which we believe can only be good for Canterbury as a whole.”

The Canterbury Water Management Strategy, developed by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum to solve the region’s water debate, has the parallel development of irrigation, environment, recreation and conservation as its focus. It provides a framework for zone committees to act as “the engine room” of the planning and delivery of comprehensive outcomes.

The passage of the Bill will also mean court action over the Hurunui Conservation Order will no longer go ahead. The matter will now be heard by the newly appointed regional authority commissioners, who will be required to give due consideration to the vision and principles of the Canterbury Water Management Strategy in making their determinations.

It’s a move that’s been welcomed by the Hurunui District Council which last year tried, on three separate occasions, to encourage the parties to agree to a stay of the court proceedings.

Mayor Garry Jackson says the Council could see no value in the issue being debated along two parallel and potentially conflicting paths – through both the water conservation order and Canterbury water management strategy processes. “Because the Water Conservation Order process inherently favours one view, or one party, over another as compared to the collaborate approach, it limits the options available for consideration later by an incoming zone committee under the Canterbury Management Strategy. “Apart from the financial benefits of moving away from the often combative and expensive court process, we also saw it as a chance to demonstrate the same concerted efforts that had shaped the Strategy in the first place.”

Mayor Jackson says the Council believes moving the matter from the Environment Court to the Regional Council Chambers will ensure the best possible outcome for the community at large. It continues to fully support the Canterbury Water Management Strategy and believes Government’s decision, cemented last night, to appoint commissioners and the powers granted to them will provide the necessary framework to deliver its comprehensive objectives and goals in the interests of the region as a whole.