Canterbury Water Kaikōura Zone Committee meeting

The Kaikōura Zone Committee will meet on Tuesday 13 December for its final monthly meeting of the year.

The Kaikōura Zone Committee was officially launched in July 2011. Since then it has met four times and received a number of presentations on water issues relevant to the zone.

At this month’s meeting the committee will receive an update on water metering in the zone. The upcoming Government National Regulations require water consent holders with takes of more than five litres per second to install metering devices. The first deadline for installations is 10 November 2012 for takes of more than 20 litres per second. (Full details of water metering requirements can be found at: www.ecan.govt.nz/watermetering).

The zone committee will then review recommendations for processes to allocate Immediate Steps biodiversity funding before looking at draft water management priorities for the zone.

Once the committee has agreed on the preliminary water management priorities for the zone they need to be further refined and developed to form the basis for the draft Kaikōura Zone Implementation Programme (ZIP). The draft ZIP will include draft recommendations on how to deliver the priority outcomes.

Small working groups of committee members are expected to be developed to refine the priority outcomes and recommendations which would then brought to the full committee. The committee hopes to be able to engage with the community to get their feedback on the priority areas in March 2012.

A draft ZIP can then be developed and should be available for community feedback via public meetings and online submissions in mid-2012.

At December’s meeting the committee will also look forward to next year and develop an outline for work to be undertaken in 2012.

At previous meetings the committee has discussed the state of the water resource in the zone, cultural values, drinking water, Canterbury Water targets, and priority areas for biodiversity funding.

The Kaikōura Zone Committee meets monthly to gather information about the region and its water resource with the goal of developing a Zone Implementation Programme (ZIP) for the management of the region's water resource.

The committee also goes on a number of field trips so members can visit areas of significance and meet with community members. Prior to this month’s meeting the committee will visit Lake Rotorua to get a feel for the surrounding landscape and to learn more about the biodiversity values and water quality of the lake and surrounding catchment.

The Kaikōura Zone Committee members are; Ted Howard, Matt Hoggard, Ron Mackle, Tony Blunt, Derrick Millton and Sarah Beardmore, Kaikōura Mayor Winston Gray, Environment Canterbury Commissioner David Bedford and Rūnanga representative Gina Solomon.

The Kaikōura Zone Committee operates as a joint committee of the Kaikōura District Council and Environment Canterbury. Committee meetings are open to the public.

Meeting information

Kaikōura Zone Committee meeting
1pm, Tuesday, 13 December
The Supper Room, Memorial Hall - 32 Esplanade, Kaikōura

Read the agenda.