There is growing frustration that a project with proven environmental gains is being stalled by red tape.

It is nearly two years since the Hekeao/Hinds Water Enhancement Trust (HHWET) lodged resource consent applications to expand its project to improve the quality of river and groundwater.

It is already New Zealand’s largest managed groundwater rehabilitation project but further expansion has now stalled with the consent process heading to a hearing in October.

“We know what we are doing is working,” executive director Brett Painter said.

The Trust started with just one Managed Aquifer Recharge(MAR) pond in 2016 and has expanded its site numbers to 15.

They applied to ECan for resource consent to operate MAR sites at 34 locations, 14 existing and 20 new sites, in 2022.

Painter presented an annual update to the Ashburton Water Zone Committee last week and said the delays in the consent process have put the Trust two years behind.

He says delays mean “the clock is ticking towards 2035” – the date that ECan’s Canterbury land and water regional plan requires median annual shallow groundwater concentrations of nitrate-nitrogen be less than 6.9 mg/l.

“We are behind in getting up to speed and being able to get the sites in the ground, water in the ground, and measure the results,” Painter said.

“The evidence very clearly shows where these targeted enhancements are happening, that they are having the benefit across the whole ecosystem health spectrum.”

Zone committee chairperson Bill Thomas said the hold up in the consent process and associated costs is a shame “when we are looking for tools to try and help the nitrate problems”.

“One is staring us in the face and it's run into a brick wall.”

Ashburton District councillor Richard Wilson said it is a big investment for the community and there is “a lot of money going around in a circle”.

He said the community is paying targeted rates to ECan towards HHWET’s operations to improve water quality and the environment, but a lot of money appears to be going towards consents rather than actions.

“Sure you need consents, but it’s spending a lot of money to do something that ECan said we want you to do.

“I understand there are people against it, but you hope they will see the outcome at the end is better than not doing anything at all.”

ECan consents manager Aurora Grant said the five resource consent applications are for a large-scale activity and will significantly increase the scale – proposing to use more than six times the current amount of water.

“The scale and complexity of the proposal, and additional information which the applicant has needed to provide has meant that the processing of these applications has taken some time.”

As ECan had a facilitatory role in the investigation stages of the project, the application process has been independently contracted out.

An independent commissioner decided that the applications required public notification, with 79 submissions received and a hearing being organised for October.

What the project does

MAR sites contain infiltration basins, which act like big leaky ponds. The basins are filled with high-quality water that seeps down and recharges the groundwater.

This enhances ground and surface water quality and quantity. Near river recharge (NRR) is the same but is located in a river’s flood plain, so that river flow and quality are enhanced.

Hekeao/Hinds Water Enhancement Trust Limited (HHWET) and Rangitata Diversion Race Management Ltd (RDRML) are seeking resource consents for managed aquifer recharge (MAR) and near river recharge at 37 locations in the Hekeao/Hinds catchment.

These sites require up to 3,200 l/s of surface water in addition to HHWET's already consented 500 l/s. RDRML has applied to use some of its consented take from the Rangitata River to support HHWET operations.

Hinds water project expands focus

What started as a trial to address groundwater nitrates issues has now widened its focus to “restoring the balance” of the wider ecosystems.

Hekeao/Hinds Water Enhancement Trust (HHWET) executive director Brett Painter said the approach is “like a three-legged stool”.

“All three legs of the stool are required for it to be sat on.”

The three legs are water quality, water quantity, and habitat.

“In Canterbury, because we haven’t had enough decent droughts, we have become obsessed with the water quality leg of the stool and forgotten about the water quantity leg which we will remember quickly when the next big drought hits us.

“Even if we get those two legs sorted we won’t have a healthy, vibrant environment around us if we don’t have the habitat in the right place.

“What we have learned over the last eight years is that the key aspects can be achieved, in an economically sustainable way for the community.”

Painter can delve deep into the data, facts and figures they have from eight years of work, but the simplest take away is that what they are doing is having positive outcomes.

The initial focus of the project was proving the concept worked and they now “have all the evidence to show it does”.

“The question now is what a healthy ecosystem across the Hind’s plains looks like.

“The one-word answer is life. That’s life in the waterways but it also means safer drinking water.”

Through the investment in monitoring and the enhancement trials, the Trust has “improved our understanding dramatically about how the ground and surface water system of the Hinds plains works”.

“That means we can have much more confidence that the money being spent is targeted where it is most needed.”

By Jonathan Leask