Christchurch council could help fund campaign group's water bottling legal challenge

Thursday, 14 March 2019

Thousands of people took to the streets in Christchurch in March 2019 to protest against a Canterbury water bottling plant.

Christchurch's city council is considering bankrolling a water campaign group fighting a legal battle against the regional council and a bottling firm.

Councillors have discussed whether they can offer financial assistance to Aotearoa Water Action (AWA), which is embroiled in a judicial review against Environment Canterbury (ECan), Cloud Ocean Water and another business, Rapaki Natural Resources, over consents for commercial bottling.

Water campaigners Aotearoa Water Action could get council money to help fight Environment Canterbury and water bottling company Cloud Ocean Water.

The organisation is likely to need at least another $50,000 for the next stage of its legal action and councillors are mulling over whether to offer funding from the public purse.

If financial backing is approved it would effectively pitch Canterbury's two biggest councils head-to-head in the courts. ECan has declined to comment on the matter.

Councillor Vicki Buck believes success in the judicial review could offer surety for the future around water consents.

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Pauline Cotter, head of the city council's infrastructure, transport and environment committee, said: 'As councillors we would like to try, on behalf of the people of Christchurch, to find some way to assist them with the funding.

AWA campaigners need at least another $50,000 to keep their fight in the courts.

'We have indicated that we would like to help them if they need it. We just really want to see them get the best chance they can now they have got this far.'

For any funding to actually be granted would require AWA to directly ask for help, Cotter said.

In December, a judge ruled in AWA's favour that Cloud Ocean and Rapaki Natural Resources – which are allowed to freely take billions of litres of water from Christchurch's aquifers each year – could not rely on consents issued decades ago for industrial uses as being sufficient to allow for bottling purposes.

Cloud Ocean Water has consents to billions of litres of water from Christchurch's aquifers at its factory in Belfast.

Campaigners are now challenging ECan's granting of new consents that effectively repurposed old ones and changed the use to allow for water bottling.

Councillors began discussing funding AWA after its spokesman, Peter Richardson, made an impassioned plea in December for them to protect the city's aquifers.

Councillor Vicki Buck told Stuff there was widespread support among elected members for the court action and for the legalities around the amalgamation and variations of old consents to be tested.

The council is taking legal advice and began examining the issue in a private meeting in January, including possibilities such as whether it could apply to the government for a water conservation order for Christchurch's aquifers, which could help protect and preserve them.

A staff report on the options is expected later this month, though that may also be received in private.

Buck favoured the council supporting AWA's judicial review. Funding through pledges and donations was 'too tough' for a community group on an issue that affected everyone in Canterbury, she said.

'If AWA was to win the case it actually rescinds Cloud Ocean's consent and creates a lot more surety around the future.

'There are important legal issues that need clarifying … and aside from the judicial review the council needs to look at whatever other possibilities there are.'

Buck suggested the issue was more widespread than the consents owned by Cloud Ocean and Rapaki Natural Resources, with a number of other sites for sale across Christchurch and the wider region with similar water consents attached that could potentially be varied for bottling.

Richardson said any funding from the council to help legal costs would be 'fantastic', with the $40,000 it raised for the first part of its legal battle coming from public donations.

'We have now depleted that resource and we will be going back to the public for another round of fundraising very shortly.'