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THE BOARD of Inquiry (BOI) hearing the proposal to build a $275 million water storage dam in Hawkes Bay has just released its final decision.
But commentators say it will take several days to interpret the decisions and accompanying appendices contained in three sets of documents totalling 963 pages of detailed text.
The board released a draft decision in April this year and many interested organisations including Fonterra, DairyNZ, Federated Farmers, the Hawkes Bay Regional Council various environmental groups and others made submissions on this. There was considerable concern expressed by primary sector groups about the draft decisions and fears that it would affect existing farmers, let alone new entrants to the sector. At the heart of the issue is what is known as Plan Change 6 which relates to conditions to be imposed on farmers in the Tukituki catchment.
Most organisations who made submissions say it's too early to comment on the final decision and say it will take several days to work through the complex documents and changes that have been made or not made. Federated Farmers Hawkes Bay President Will Foley says it'll be several days before he's in a position to comment. Hawkes Bay Regional Council has issued a statement to that effect also.
On the EPA website the BOI says:
• It's corrected an error and amended the rule that would have required individual farmers to observe the DIN limit/target in receiving waters. If an individual farmer complies with the LUC leaching rates (and meets the other requirements of the rule other than the DIN limits) the use of production land is a permitted activity
• Resolved an anomaly in the rules relating to the use of production land by raising the upper threshold for exceeding of LUC leaching rates (from 10% to 30%) before a restricted discretionary activity becomes non-complying
• Clarified that compliance with the LUC leaching rates should be determined using a four year rolling average of either measured or estimated leaching rates derived from annual nutrient budgets.
The full decision is on the EPA website http://www.epa.govt.nz/Resource-management/Tukituki/Pages/default.aspx
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