A committee tasked with improving Ashburton's water management has expressed frustration at the quality of information being provided by Environment Canterbury.

The joint committee of the Ashburton District Council and ECan has been set up to deliver on the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

Members often submit queries to ECan for clarification, and at Tuesday’s meeting, some were unsatisfied with some of the responses and the lack of answers.

The issue that drew their ire was a non-response to questions around ECan statements at the Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation hearing that the Hakatere/Ashburton hāpua is degraded.

The committee requested at the end of August that ECan present what factors were considered to determine if an area is degraded, and what reports were used to determine that the Hakatere/Ashburton hāpua was degraded.

The response was that “staff are unable to present”.

That wasn’t good enough for Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown.

The committee had asked ECan to substantiate the comments, as “they must have some facts and figures behind it” Brown said.

They have had months to respond he said.

Committee chairperson Bill Thomas said the questions will be resubmitted “because they haven’t answered it, and they can come as soon as they can come, but next meeting would be good”.

“We would like someone to come and actually front up.”

Brown didn’t stop there as he was not impressed at ECan’s response to questions about Greenstreet Creek issues.

“From a regulatory body, that’s not an answer.

“We all have to play by the rules and we need facts to back up our statements.”

The committee had asked what the negative effects were on the environment after using emergency powers to divert water down Greenstreet Creek in February.

ECan responded it caused a “substantial reduction in flow in O’Shea Creek, which is a recognised refuge creek for native fish”.

“While an ecological assessment was not carried out, reduced flows in a river typically impacts the fish habitat and in-stream fauna.”

Thomas said if it was fact-based judgement they would have presented the facts.

ECan’s water and land science manager Elaine Moriarty, said she had been alerted to the zone committee’s requests on Wednesday and apologised they didn’t have a “more up-to-date progress update”.

“Some of these requests take more time to arrange than others, but we acknowledge we need to do better in sharing timeframes back to the committee.”

Providing further information on the degradation of Hakatere/Ashburton hāpua is being organised, with a principal freshwater scientist being arranged to present an update at the November meeting if the agenda allows.

 At Greenstreet, ecological assessments at O’Shea Creek “wasn’t necessary, and the diversion was temporary”.

And would not have altered the minimum flow restrictions in place she said.

“There is now scope to gather information for future planning processes and the science team will be conducting ecological assessments at a number of locations in O’Shea Creek and Greenstreet to assess the current health of the waterways before Christmas, in conjunction with landowners.”

Committee future

The future of the water zone committee, one of 10 in Canterbury, is under review by ECan. A working group of Mayors, Runanga chairpersons and the Environment Canterbury chairperson and deputy held a workshop this month and will present the preliminary findings to committee representatives next week. A final report will be presented to the Canterbury Mayoral Forum in late November.

By Jonathan Leask