Review panel

A review panel was made up of economists and scientists from Dairy NZ, Lincoln University and Landcare Research. The following documents summarise the process they used and outcomes they reached.

Decision process chart

This chart documents the decision process the panel of experts applied to determine the proportion of charges that could be recovered from consent holders

View the chart (pdf 22 kB)

Comparison table 

The following table shows the expert panel's assessment of the proportion of charges that could be recovered from consent holders, compared with Environment Canterbury's assessment carried out for the previous year.

 View the table (pdf 12 kB)

Benefits

The following benefits of the investigations and monitoring work programmes have been identified for the wider regional community and the individual consent holder.

Benefits to the regional community

• Knowledge about the water resource.
• Early warning of changes in water resource or sustainability issues.
• Water resource is managed sustainably.
• Ecosystem health is protected.
• Recreational, drinking water and cultural uses of water can continue.
• Benefits to regional and local economies and social gains from use of water and ability to discharge in rural and urban areas.
• A thriving rural sector supports the regional economy.

Benefits to consent holders

• Knowledge about the water which provides a context for describing and understanding the effects of an individual consent.
• Greater certainty of ongoing access to water, protection of reliability, and ability to discharge.
• Economic gains from use of water and ability to discharge in rural and urban areas.
• Water not being unnecessarily withheld from allocation (or discharge) due to uncertainty about extent of the resource.
• Better information about cause and effect and hence correctly attributing (or not attributing) effects to consent holders.

Existing consent monitoring

It is important to distinguish between monitoring in relation to individual resource consents and the freshwater investigations and monitoring carried out by Environment Canterbury for state of environment purposes.

Resource consent monitoring: relates to the information individual consent holders are required to provide to show compliance with their consent conditions. It focuses on the effects of an individual activity on the immediate environment, particularly if effects could not be fully known when the consent was applied for.

Freshwater investigations and monitoring: looks at the cumulative rather than small-scale effects of consented activities and includes the information needed to manage the freshwater resource on the regional scale.

Links with the Canterbury Water Management Strategy

The Canterbury Water Management Strategy was initiated by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum and was released in November 2009. A key part of the strategy is the establishment of zonal committees to develop solutions to local water issues.

The scope of the strategy extends to the national level and is much wider than Environment Canterbury’s freshwater investigations and monitoring activities.

The Working Group recommended that local accountability for State of the Environment water management cost recovery should be via the Canterbury Water Management Strategy zone committees.

Read more about the Canterbury Water Management Strategy.

Working Group representatives

• Environment Canterbury
  • Cr Jo Kane
  • Cr Angus McKay
  • Cr Eugenie Sage
• Irrigation New Zealand
• Federated Farmers
• Meridian Energy
• Horticulture NZ
• The Water Rights Trust
• Selwyn District Council
• Individual – Tim Wardell