An English aristocrat, worth more than $1 billion, is among the opponents of a high-profile water consent. David Williams reports
The battle over a water-take consent involving yachting great Sir Russell Coutts enters a critical phase this week.
An Otago Regional Council hearing starts tomorrow in Queenstown to consider whether BSTGT Ltd, a company associated with Coutts, and a family trust for his neighbour Tony McQuilkin, should be granted a fresh consent to replace five historic water permits from two creeks on the Crown Terrace, above Arrowtown. The hearing commissioner is Rob van Voorthuysen.
The water, from two take points on Royal Burn’s north branch and one on New Chums Creek, is funnelled onto the properties via a network of weirs, channels, pipes and water races. Most of it’s for Coutts’ property, Barley Station, which sports a 36-hectare private golf course. (Thanks to recent approval by Queenstown’s council, it can be extended to the full 18 holes.)
The total area to be irrigated, mostly farmland, is 160 hectares; about the size of Christchurch’s Hagley Park.
Resource management set-pieces like consent hearings are guided by expert reports, often from consultants, depending on the council’s capability, and a recommending report from a key planner.
For various reasons, it’s recommended the consent be granted, and if certain conditions are adopted, the effect on the environment and downstream users is deemed to be minor. A term of 15 years is ”appropriate”, the report says.
The consent has dodged several key considerations. It doesn’t comply with proposed plan change 7 (PPC7) to Otago’s regional water plan – but it doesn’t need to, because it was lodged in 2019, a year before the plan change took effect.
There’s also a bit of wiggle room under the national policy statement for freshwater management brought in last year. (In planning speak, those making decisions on consents only have to “have regard to” it.)
The policy statement says tangata whenua must be actively involved in the consent process, and they have been. However, recommending report writer Alexandra King, the council’s team leader of consents, didn’t agree with all the requests from Aukaha, representing several rūnanga, which asked for a consent term of six years, and higher minimum flows.
And while a long consent duration is recommended, conditions can be imposed later if the whole Arrow catchment has minimum flows imposed via a plan change.
King writes a 15-year term strikes “an appropriate balance between the applicant’s level of investment, the security they require, managing long-term adverse effects, the timing of the application, and in ensuring consistency with the council’s direction under PPC7”.
Here’s the tension. Approving this consent will reduce what BSTGT and McQuilkin’s family trust can take now by 211 litres per second. That might sound like an environment win. But the Arrow catchment is over-allocated by 1623 L/s.
Another issue is the regional council’s mismanagement of water consents. Environment Minister David Parker appointed Professor Peter Skelton, a former commissioner at Canterbury’s regional council, to investigate. His report, completed two years ago, found Otago’s freshwater planning system to be inadequate.
Skelton was aghast at the long terms of water consents granted by the regional council – many for 35 years or more. His concerns carried through to plan change 7, which said replacements for old mining permits should last for six years, except when the adverse effects on ecology and hydrology were “no more than minor”.
King’s report says the adverse effects on the Royal Burn, New Chums and groundwater will be no more than minor – and therefore a 15-year term is consistent with the plan change.
Opponents, many of them worried about their own water rights, might disagree. One of them is Rich Lister Henrietta, Duchess of Bedford, whose estimated wealth is more than $1 billion.
A submission for Bloomsbury Stud (NZ) Ltd, written by business partner Berri Schroder, states Henrietta is a major shareholder in the company, which owns property on the Crown Terrace.
Schroder claims BSTGT hasn’t provided adequate evidence about potential pollution run-off from the golf course.
Bloomsbury Stud’s primary evidence – the contact address for which is an accounting firm in Matamata – says the application’s assessment of environmental effects is “incomplete and inadequate” and should be declined.
“The consents sought by the applicants and their intended use of the water will result in both creeks running dry.”
The sustainability of the water takes worried Bryony Miller, a freshwater ecologist at consultancy E3 Scientific who provided expert evidence to commissioner Van Voorthuysen.
Miller criticised parts of the application, among them: the inadequacy of a suggested 50-metre visible flow below the water take points; a proposed low-flow cut-off thought to be too low; and a lack of evidence the Royal Burn goes dry naturally.
“The whole creek has dried up at times when they draw water.” – Barry Hodges
Anecdotal evidence from opponents – 15 submissions were made, all in opposition – was accorded some weight.
Bloomsbury Stud’s submission says there has been a significant change in land-use since the original water allocations and the “applicants’ arrival”. “During construction of the extensive race system and ponds at the head of the Royal Burn catchment the Royal Burn creek was run dry, depriving families and farms downstream of any water for long periods of time. This was brought to the attention of the applicants and Otago Regional Council but nothing was done about it.”
The submission of Glenn and Kerryn Russell says Brodie Creek, which feeds into the Royal Burn’s lower section, “always had flow even in the dryer seasons”. “Now there is significantly less flow, even on some occasions running dry.”
The Royal Burn passes through the property of Peter Clarke and Niki Mason, immediate neighbours of Barley Station. Their submission notes on December 30 last year, the culvert carring the Royal Burn’s north branch was dry while the south branch was running.
Another opponent, Barry Hodges, says: “The whole creek has dried up at times when they draw water – first time in the 22 years I have lived beside the Royal Burn.”
Miller, of E3 Scientific, says a robust groundwater assessment is needed, “given the disparity between the applicant and submitters, and the potential for adverse effects on the ecology of the Royal Burn”.
She proposes a residual flow of 10 L/s – double that suggested by the applicants – something endorsed by recommending report writer King. Miller writes: “Altering a creek’s flow regime from permanent to intermittent, or increasing a creek’s intermittency, reduces its life-supporting capacity, including macroinvertebrate populations and increases the risk of periphyton proliferation.”
Hilary Lough, a groundwater specialist with consultancy Pattle Delamore Partners, also provided expert evidence to the commissioner. She says the applicants haven’t assessed the potential effects on groundwater. Therefore, some monitoring is appropriate.
A February assessment by Crown research institute NIWA, for BSTGT and McQuilkin’s family trust, shows the Royal Burn creek loses flow to groundwater in some areas and gains in others. The applicants’ “commentary” suggested a reach of the Royal Burn was “naturally drying”, with water being lost to the ground to the point where the low flow is, intermittently at least, zero.
However, Miller writes: “This data does not clearly demonstrate whether the creek is naturally intermittent or not.”
Another consultant expert Bas Veendrick, a senior hydrologist and environmental scientist for Pattle Delamore Partners, says: “If the stream is directly connected to groundwater, then the relationship will be dependent on groundwater levels relative to the water level in the stream.”
Commissioner Van Voorthuysen will have to weigh the applicants’ promise to reduce pressure on the creeks “where possible”. This undertaking sparked concern from freshwater ecologist Miller, who infers that’s not the best regime for sustainable management. She notes the consent proposes year-round abstraction, a lack of daily maximum take, and the proposed exceedance of both mean annual flows of the creeks, and mean annual low flows.
King, the recommending report writer, picks up on this and recommends different volumes of water than those sought. While instantaneous rates of take would remain the same, she recommends lower volumes during irrigation season. Water metering has been recommended. (The rate of take has exceeded the consented maximum “on some occasions”, King’s report says, while a reach of the Royal Burn drying up in 2018 sparked complaints.)
The regional council hearing in Queenstown is set to last two days.
