Environment Canterbury receives water recommendations from two zones
As an early Christmas present, the Environment Canterbury Council today received Zone Implementation Programme addenda (ZIPAs) from the Orari-Temuka-Opihi-Pareora and Waimakariri water zone committees.
Chair Steve Lowndes said Council was “delighted” to see the culmination of multi-year community processes to help deliver water quality and quantity objectives for the future of these two catchments.
“I congratulate the zone committees for their sterling work over a long and sustained period,” he said. “They have done brilliantly to take us to this point, and have given us excellent frameworks to help us get on and put in place water plans that will stand the test of time and deliver what their communities are asking for – better water outcomes.
“These processes are never easy,” Steve Lowndes said. “Reaching consensus – or even compromise – is enormously challenging when you have a range of views around the table. It is a testament to the way the two zone committees and their communities have approached their enormous tasks that we find ourselves in this position today. It is truly a milestone – in fact two huge milestones.”
He said it was particularly pleasing to see the way both documents adopted and in many cases built on the rules in the Canterbury Land & Water Regional Plan, including the Nutrient Management and Waitaki Plan Change (Plan Change 5), which Council resolved to make operative today.
“For example, Good Management Practice on farm is central to the way we are addressing nitrogen leaching throughout the region."
The two ZIPAs will be made subject to the formal Resource Management Act process, involving development of sub-region sections of the Land & Water Regional Plan. Public submissions will be called for and independent hearings held. It is anticipated that the proposed sub-regional plans will be notified in mid 2019.
“Superb progress has been made with our planning, particularly in recent times,” Steve Lowndes concluded. “In partnership with our communities, we are well on the way towards completing catchment-focused rules for the whole region.”