Water bottling plants 'lawfully' approved, High Court rules

Thursday, 9 July 2020

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

Water bottling plants that caused public outrage in Christchurch were lawfully approved, the High Court has ruled.

It is a blow to what had been a long-standing effort to prevent two of the country’s largest water bottling operations, which combined have permission to extract about 8.8 billion litres of water each year.

Resource consents relating to the two plants – one operated by Cloud Ocean Water, the other by Rapaki Natural Resources – had been challenged by Aotearoa Water Action (AWA), a lobby group opposed to water bottling.

Its legal challenge was funded in part by the Christchurch City Council, which had been concerned the water bottlers would interfere with the council’s own water supply.

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Protesters stretch the length of Cashel St mall at a water bottling protest in 2019.

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Water bottled by Cloud Ocean at its Christchurch plant.

Both plants were built on land that already had consent to take water – in one case for a wool scour, and for the other, a freezing works.

When the bottlers took over the consents, they applied to change the use of that water to bottling. Those applications were approved by Environment Canterbury (ECan), without public consultation.

The dispute was whether ECan needed to consider the environmental effects of the water bottling as a new activity – which, under the Canterbury Regional Plan, would be prohibited – or whether it only had to consider the environmental effects of the change of activity (as in, whether water bottling would cause additional environmental damage beyond that of a freezing works and a wool scour).

ECan took the latter interpretation, and concluded the environmental effects would be less than minor.

Because the original consents had been granted many years earlier for specific industrial purposes, AWA argued the applications should be considered as new consents, subject to the same environmental considerations any new application for water would receive.

The group scored an early win when the High Court refused a preliminary argument from Cloud Ocean claiming the original consents allowed for water bottling.

But in a just released judgment, the High Court sided with ECan, and said its process was lawful.

“There was no reviewable error in the way the council dealt with the resource consent applications,” it said.

“With these applications being only for a change in use, the council was not required to, and did not consider, the environmental effects of such takes. There was no error in this.”

AWA also claimed ECan was obliged to put the applications out for public consultation, an argument the court rejected.

ECan had told the court the water bottling would take no more water than what the previous consents had allowed, and would not result in further adverse environmental effects.

That was also why the consents were not put out for public consultation, it said.

The water bottling plants have caused consternation in Christchurch, inspiring a well-populated protest march that drew thousands.

Cloud Ocean, in particular, has faced scrutiny for poor health and safety practices. It was also fined by ECan for polluting a stream.

The court case did not consider the wider issues of water bottling, or broader questions around water rights.

In a statement, ECan said it was pleased with the decision.

“We’ve most certainly heard the community’s concern about water and water bottling in particular, but we have to apply the law as it stands, which this decision confirms we have done,” said acting chief executive Stefanie Rixecker.

An AWA spokesperson said the group planned to release a statement on Friday. The Christchurch City Council has been approached for comment.