Council spat deepening over the future of Christchurch's drinking water

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Christchurch City councillor Vicki Buck is appalled by decision to grant water rights to Cloud Ocean Water without public discussion. (Video first published December 12, 2018)

A battle has erupted between the city and regional councils over the future of Christchurch's drinking water.

The heated dispute was sparked by the decision on Wednesday of an Environment Canterbury (ECan)-appointed commissioner to approve Cloud Ocean Water's plans to extract water from a 186-metre deep bore at its Belfast bottling operation.

That decision, which locked members of the public and their opinions out of the consent process, enraged Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel and city councillor Vicki Buck.

The Christchurch City Council considering challenging a decision to grant Cloud Ocean Water approval to take water from a deep aquifer.

But ECan's chairman says the criticism is 'ill-informed' and 'off-the-wall'.

**READ MORE:

Cloud Ocean Water can use deep-bore water for its operation, an Environment Canterbury-appointed independent commissioner has decided.

* Public sidelined over Christchurch deep-bore bottling plan

* Environment Canterbury dealt court blow on water bottling consent call

Cloud Ocean Water already has consent to extract water from a shallow bore at its Belfast site. It now wants to take some or all of that water from a deeper bore.

* Council considers pushing for changes to 'crazy' water bottling rules**

Some city councillors say they have lost confidence in the regional council's ability to manage the city's water supply.

On Wednesday, Cr Vicki Buck said the decision of Peter Fowler, QC, meant the city council would be forced in future to prove that any increased take for residential drinking water would not interfere with Cloud Ocean's consents.

An ECan spokeswoman confirmed that was correct.

'Just as Cloud Ocean had to do with all the surrounding wells within a 2km radius, including the CCC's bore, any application to take groundwater has to demonstrate well-interference effects on surrounding bores and determine the effects are less than minor.'

However, ECan chairman Steve Lowndes said the city council seemed to be forgetting the advice given to it by its own staff and consultants.

'They are unnecessarily spreading alarm in Christchurch city about the drinking water.

'There's plenty of water. It's being managed properly and effectively by ECan, and we operate very strictly according to the Resource Management Act.

'To say we are not doing it properly is utterly ill-informed. It's politics.

'This is off-the-wall.'

Appointed ECan councillor Peter Skelton said the city council's own modelling showing there would be no effect on water draw-down from existing and future bores.

Fowler had covered that in his decision but that had not been mentioned by the media or the city council, Skelton said.

The city council says it may challenge the water-bottling decision. But Lowndes said 'I really don't think they will get anywhere with that'.

At the Thursday city council meeting, councillor Raf Manji questioned if ECan was the right model to manage the city's environment.

'I really don't have confidence in the ECan model to manage our water supply.'

Buck said if ECan could not act in the best interests of the city's drinking water then the model needed to be questioned.

'Their name says Environment Canterbury, their actions say otherwise.'.

There was nothing more important than drinking water and the council needed to be guardians of the asset for the next hundreds and thousands of years, she said.

The city council has asked staff to report back on options for challenging the decision.

It also sought further advice on whether a water conservation order could be put in place, an idea was raised by Aotearoa Water Action.

At Thursday's ECan meeting, the resolutions about water passed earlier in the day by the CCC were tabled and 'noted'.

Discussing the city council's opposition to a proposal - later passed - to increase acceptable nitrate levels in the city's drinking water, appointed ECan councillor David Caygill said: 'I try to be as respectful as I can, though sometimes I find myself struggling with the views of our councillor colleagues at the city council.'

Over at the city council, Dalziel said she was 'utterly dismayed' at Fowler's Cloud Ocean decision and was intrigued at the idea of a water conservation order to protect the city's water supply.

The council also agreed to ask ECan to urgently review aspects of its Land and Water Regional Plan (LWRP) to make it harder for water bottling companies to take water from the city's aquifers.

The LWRP treats the whole Christchurch-West Melton groundwater protection zone as a single water body, even though it contains several distinct aquifers at varying depths. The council believed each aquifer should be considered as separate water bodies, which would trigger a new consent being required for a new well in a different aquifer.

Existing rules prevent any further resource consents for additional water in Christchurch from being granted, except for the public water supply.