Regional council responds to Creech Review: need for change acknowledged
Environment Canterbury has released its response to the recent Government investigation of its functions under the Resource Management and Local Government Acts. The investigation was headed by former MP Wyatt Creech.
Regional council chief executive Dr Bryan Jenkins said the response reiterated the fact that the council had recognized the need for change in relation to water management and has been implementing change programmes which would affect the way the organisation operates internally and externally. This more collaborative and less adversarial model was being rolled out throughout the organization.
Dr Jenkins said the response had been sent to Ministers Nick Smith and Rodney Hide because the council’s management team believed the organisation was on a pathway towards integrated water management and was recognizing the need to be more enabling and less process-oriented in doing its work.
However, the environmental watchdog role of the regional council was a legislative requirement and expected by the many communities in the region regardless of whoever was at the helm. This had just this week been acknowledged by Minister of Agriculture David Carter in relation to dairy farm compliance. He pointed out that regional councils are the only authority which routinely measures environmental compliance enabling the farming community to measure whether or not they are meeting the aims of Fonterra’s and Government’s Clean Streams Accord.
The Canterbury Water Management Strategy, which grew from regional council water studies and continued to be funded by a separate regional council rate, had been praised by the Creech review. However the report had not acknowledged the pivotal role of the regional council capability in managing and undertaking the technical investigations as well as the stakeholder and community engagement to develop the strategy.
However, the Canterbury Water Management Strategy incorporates a structure which requires local buy-in and involvement in each catchment. This has the potential to substantially reduce the conflict around Resource Management Act projects. It would also act as a way for regional and territorial council issues around land and water management to get a full discussion at local level before heading into the more expensive and less flexible court or consent hearing process.
“This non-adversarial, collaborative approach has already occurred in places like the Orari catchment in South Canterbury,” said Dr Jenkins. “There Environment Canterbury facilitated an informal approach to a proposed dam project, with strong community buy-in and with the agreement of a developer to put his proposal on ice while many issues were talked through at local level. The four well-beings – environmental, economic, social and cultural - were all taken into account. The result was a much-amended proposal, the Orari River left un-dammed and a relatively straightforward consents process for Rangitata South Irrigation.
“This is the kind of process the Canterbury Water Management Strategy is seeking to formalise. Environment Canterbury has shown it can be done with community and regional council involvement.”
Dr Jenkins said the high level of territorial authorities’ Resource Management Act non-compliance was a continual source of friction and yet even with a commissioner at the helm, this issue of non-compliance still needed to be addressed. The situation with the local district and city councils contrasted with the effort being made by the dairy industry to engage with the regional council to see how they could improve their performance year on year.
“We do not see much recognition from territorial authorities that their level of resource consent non-compliance is a serious issue that needs addressing. Environment Canterbury’s Pollution Hotline response team regularly mops up the results of neglected sewage and stormwater infrastructure that dates back to our grandparents’ days, when populations were much smaller. “