Upper Taieri Water Management Project

May 2008
The Upper Taieri area receives as little as 350 mm annual rainfall and so irrigation is crucial to farm viability. Taieri waterways also support an important sports fishery, native fauna and wetland values.

However, a high degree of community fragmentation has developed within the catchment over a 150 year history of water use. The Taieri River is currently over-allocated, prohibiting most new water take consents. Those that are able to irrigate do so through individual RMA water permits or through a community-led scheme (the Maniototo Irrigation Company).

There is also a historic and complex system of mining rights/deemed permits that were issued in gold-mining times and are now used for irrigation. These are the least restrictive exitsing water permits operating in NZ with rights overriding Resource Management Act environmental provisions. Uncertainty is mounting as irrigators look beyond 2021 when these historic permits become void (through a Government derived sunset clause with the advent of the Resource Management Act).

A project aimed at developing a water management and allocation system for whole-of- community good is under way. This project is bringing together diverse user groups, such as DOC, Fish & Game New Zealand, Iwi, local government and researchers together with farmers, to modify the way water is allocated within the Taieri to ensure whole-of-community benefits well into the future.

The Project, which started in July 2007, is co-ordinated Gretchen Robertson of the NZ Landcare Trust, an independent body that aims to foster and support sustainable land management through community involvement.

So far:

A multi-stakeholder catchment management group was formed in August 2007 The Upper Taieri Water Resource Management Group

The Group has been granted $100,000 over two years through the MAFs Sustainable Farming Fund, with NZ Landcare Trust as co-ordinator.

The idea of a company to manage the overall catchment on behalf of all irrigators has been put forward, and is receiving considerable support

A GIS MapChat system that allows the project participants to view the whole catchment and work together on solutions is being provided by the University of Otago. It is helping participants to move beyond individual takes to whole of catchment water management system. It is interesting, but beyond the scope of this item, and perhaps could be the subject of another development story at a later date.

Gretchen Robertson

Everyone needs to be working as a community on future water management because there is probably going to be less water to go around more people, and so careful planning is essential, says Gretchen Robertson.

For example, one interesting proposal that some farmers downstream in the Middlemarch areas would pay for a scheme to divert water over a mountain range into a dam up in the Taieri headwaters. The water would then flow down about 100km through the Maniototo Irrigation Companys part of the catchment and then on to Middlemarch where they would utilise it. For that to happen they have to have an agreement with the farmers further up in the Maniototo not to take the water out, which legally they would be allowed to do. So people are having to collaborate.

Peter Hore - Sheep and beef farmer

Miners rights started in the gold era in the 1860s when gold was found first at Gabriel's Gully. Peter Hores great-grandfather took on the contract to dig water supply race for miners by hand from the area known as the Buster Gorge. It took him three years. A big network of races was dug all around the mountains and they are still very evident today.

We still use part of the race, which my grandfather dug, for irrigation. Rights to that water in perpetuity were granted by the Wardens Court in Naseby. The current owners of the miners rights will be stripped of those rights in 2021, and we are not very happy about it, says Peter Hore.

Geoff Crutchley in his wisdom has suggested that all the Taieri catchment should come under the one umbrella, and we are going along with that. I must admit within the area there has been a lot of suspicion, but we are getting past that now. We have had little field days and have gone to meet each group in their own patch, and relationships are starting to develop quite well.

We think there are some real advantages in all being in one group, but beyond 2021 there is no guarantee at present that we will still be able to use that water so there is no incentive to invest in water storage or any other development. We need long-term security to replace the right to water supply in perpetuity, and that would probably be acceptable to us.

Peters current irrigation system uses exactly the same races and lifting points as the old miners did. Everything is gravity fed. He irrigates about 50ha with K-line irrigators, and also uses some contour flooding. Total property area is 7200 acres, but being able to irrigate the small area is vital to the viability of his farm.

Without irrigation this year we would have probably sold our lambs for about $35 as stores. Instead we don't expect to get less than $70 plus some wool. Our rising two-year-old steers we would have sold for about $400 without water, instead we expect to get the least $800, so irrigation means that we have the ability to make additional feed, drought-proof the property and take better advantage of markets, says Peter.

It also gives us the ability to grow feed for winter in case of heavy snows. We keep the irrigated pastures right up-to-date in terms of fertiliser and high performing species. We have miners rights for four heads of water, but we dont use it all because the races arent capable of carrying more and there isnt always water available. However, who knows what technology will do for us in the future to allow us to harvest and store water in winter and use it later.

Peter says that it is important to use the Sustainable Farming Fund money to try to look after everybody's interests.

Nobody needs to be worse off and maybe there are some people who haven't got water now will be able to get it. Hopefully out of this programme will come an investigation into what we can actually do in the district to store water for later use. I am hopeful that commonsense and fairness will be the end result and that the rivers will be maintained in good condition.

Geoff Crutchley - Chair, Maniototo Irrigation Scheme

The Maniototo scheme covers 9300 ha and serves about 60 farms, about a quarter of the Maniototo plain. The original scheme was estimated to cost about $6.2 million but by the time they had spent $32 million only 40% of the scheme was completed and the government pulled the plug. Farm companies completed the scheme. The water comes primarily from the Taieri river and is supplemented by a discharges from Loganburn dam by the great moss swamp.

The Maniototo irrigation company was set up in about 1989. Farmers took over a contract to operate and maintain the scheme in about 1986 and in 1989 changed from being an incorporated society to being a farmer owned company.

Irrigation produces about a fourfold increase in production in this area although it varies a lot. Originally they had a border dike system and the Maniototo scheme was originally designed with that in mind but increasingly people are putting in K-line or centre pivot systems. Geoff has two centre pivot systems but still uses border dike systems as well. The whole property is 2700 ha and 350 ha is irrigated.

Each property in the scheme has an allocation of water based on shareholding, 7500 cubic metres per share per year. Irrigation takes place over about 200 days with a maximum of 220.

Geoff says that a sensible option for management of the water from the Taieri is to form a company that controls the whole catchment.

It is certainly a good model to start with, how it pans out depends on what people want, but at the very least we would hope that individual catchments will form their own management groups and hold the relevant water rights in conjunction with one another rather than everyone having an individual consent. Some catchments are allocated at present using deemed permits or old mining licences and those run out in 2021. Theoretically at least, some of those catchments are already over allocated, so there is some anxiety about converting those mining licences to resource consents, says Geoff.

I am hopeful that we will get a win-win agreement and I don't want to pre-empt anything but I would certainly be disappointed if we couldn't come up with a much more cooperative system than we have at the moment. The most useful and efficient outcome in my opinion would be a single entity to manage the different catchments even if it had a whole lot of subsidiaries. But to have a single entity to manage the flows in the river itself would be a huge benefit particularly for those further downstream. Middlemarch people are trying to organise storage of water at the top end of the catchment, which would be delivered down the river to them. Unless we have some proper management of flows between the top and the point where they want to take it out then it is unlikely that any extra water that is put into the river will get to them.