Officer's report into Central Plains Water on web today

Environment Canterbury has today released its Officer’s Report for the proposed Central Plains Water Irrigation Scheme. This report and associated experts’ reports are available on ECan’s website.

The hearing on the applications for resource consents will begin on February 25, 2008

The purpose of an officer’s report is to link separate experts' reports together and provide overview comment on compliance with council policy.

Central Plains Water Trust has applied for a number of resource consents relating to the construction and operation of a large scale irrigation scheme. The applicants propose irrigating 60,000 hectares of land between the Rakaia and Waimakariri Rivers. The proposal includes a 55 metre high dam containing a 12km2 storage lake and a distribution network that includes a 10km tunnel and approximately 450km of canals.

Under the proposed scheme, water would be abstracted at a rate of up to 40 cumecs (cubic metres per second) from each of the rivers through two intakes on the Waimakariri River and one on the Rakaia.


General information on the Central Plains Water applications and all the reports described above can be found on ECan's website under What's New left hand side *Central Plains Water update*