Fight to bottle 8.8 billion litres of Christchurch water continues in Supreme Court
Wednesday, 22 March 2023
A water bottling company has taken its fight to extract water from Christchurch’s aquifers to New Zealand’s highest court.
The Supreme Court is considering whether Environment Canterbury (ECan) had the ability to grant a consent to Cloud Ocean Water and Rapaki Natural Resources, now known as Southridge Holdings Limited, to extract a total of 8.8 billion litres of water annually, using decades-old consents originally granted for industrial use.
In July 2022, the Court of Appeal quashed that decision by ECan, saying the consents were “not lawfully granted”.
The Court of Appeal decision effectively meant the two companies could use the water for its original purpose – meat processing and scouring wool – but not for bottling water.
**READ MORE:
* Appeals against water bottling consents confront Environment Canterbury processes
* Water bottling shows 'complete disregard' for Māori rights, rūnanga says
* Water bottling plants 'lawfully' approved, High Court rules
* 'Illegal' consents could have allowed water bottlers to 'jump consents queue'
* Canterbury water bottling campain group awarded $23k in legal costs by High Court
**
The decision was a big win for anti-water bottling campaigners Aotearoa Water Action (AWA), which in 2020 failed in its High Court bid to challenge ECan’s decision to grant the consents.
Cloud Ocean appealed the Court of Appeal’s decision, leading to the Supreme Court considering the issue in Christchurch this week. It is the first time the court has sat in Christchurch.
The court is determining whether ECan had the ability to grant resource consents for water use separate from the existing consents for water take.
Cloud Ocean lawyer Alanya Limmerargued that the Court of Appeal looked too narrowly at the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan when making its decision.
It looked at five specific rules rather than considering the overall intention of the plan, she said.
She called on the decision of the High Court to be reinstated.
However, AWA lawyer David Bullock said the Court of Appeal was correct in its finding to regulate the take and use of water as a singular activity.
He said there was no mechanism in the plan to sever a take and use consent and “stitch it back together into a Frankenstein hybrid” for a different purpose.
Bullock argued that in 1996 when the wool scourer made a consent application to continue using water, it was granted on the basis that it had been operating for 100 years and was an important part of the economy.
If it was not for those and other values specific to that operation, the regional council might have allocated less water or none at all, he said.
Bullock said Cloud Ocean Water should have surrendered its existing allocation and applied for a new consent.
However, he suspected the company did not do this because there was a risk the council might have approved a lesser amount of water and Cloud Ocean wanted to lock in the take it already had.
Cloud Ocean’s Belfast plant was mothballed in September 2019 due to “challenging market conditions and working capital constraints”. It has not been operational since.
The Court of Appeal decision has had wider implications in terms of the way water use is managed in Canterbury. ECan has stopped approving consents for activities that intercept groundwater, which has delayed a number of housing developments, new roads and wetland projects.
ECan’s interpretation has been criticised by engineers, developers and councils.
The hearing continues on Thursday, and the Supreme Court is likely to reserve its decision.