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HARVESTING THE PEAKS TO FILL THE TROUGHS 00By Sam Robinson ~ Central HB Farmer

WHO OWNS THE SOIL? 00By David Trubridge ~ Designer

ANTI-FRACKERS: ALARMISTS OR ALARMED? 00By Pauline Elliott ~ Don’t Frack the Bay

THE HOTTEST DESTINATION IN THE REGION 00By Douglas Lloyd Jenkins ~ Museum Director

THE GREAT DEBATE: NATIONAL STANDARDS 00By Claire Hague ~ Educator

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES 00By Kay Bazzard ~ Columnist

RIDING THE TRAIL 00By Brendan Webb ~ Columnist

DAM(N)! … A HALF-BILLION DOLLAR WATER STORAGE SCHEME ~ By Tom Belford

BayBuzz

ISSUE NO.06 : MAY/ JUNE 2012

From mountains to sea, the Tukituki presents economic opportunity,but only if it can be harnessed in an environmentally sound way.

22 FARMERS MULL OVERWATER STORAGEBy Mark Sweet

14

28 THE TUKITUKI:ALWAYS A TAONGABy Morry Black

“I’m not getting myself in a lather over this dambecause nothing will happen unless it’s bankable.”

Catch us online at www.baybuzz.co.nz

FEATURES

ContentsWATER: WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

By Tom Belford 00

REMOVING DEFICIT THINKING

By Jess Soutar Barron 00

STONEWALLED IN WESTSHORE

By Keith Newman 00

MAORI ECONOMY: BRIMMING WITH POTENTIAL

By Keith Newman 00

50 WATER STORAGE QUESTIONS 00

GROWTH AND PROSPERITY

HB Regional Council 00

INSIDE HAVELOCK NORTH

By Tom Belford 00

THEY’RE BACK!

By Kay Bazzard & Tom Belford 00

IDEAS & OPINIONS

CAN FARMERS AND FISHERS PEACEFULLY CO-EXIST ON THE TUKITUKI?By Jess Soutar Barron

8

The Regional Council proposes a half-billion dollar dam project.But who pays for it, who owns it, and is it worth it?

The Tukituki River will always be a taonga, and our ferventwish is that other river users will start treating it as such.

HAWKE’S BAY’S FINEST HOMES & LIFESTYLES

JESS SOUTAR BARRONJess is a wordsmith and project manager whose past gigs have included time with Sky TV, Hastings District Council and Band, as well as three years as a communications manager with the Metropolitan Police Service. She also produces

Fruit Bowl Craft Jam and Pecha Kucha in the Bay.

BayBuzz PO Box 8322 Havelock North 4157

Editorial Enquiries editors@baybuzz.co.nz

For Advertising Enquiries contact:tessa@baybuzz.co.nz 021 320 694graham@baybuzz.co.nz 021 180 1415

This edition of BayBuzz rounds out our first year of publishing … six issues. Whew!

Our team – the enthusiastic folks identified on this page, including our many volunteer writers

– has performed well under pressure. Inflicting only minor wounds on each other while turning out a pretty good magazine on a shoestring. I appreciate all of their efforts.

The community has responded very positively. Thank you!

And while we appreciate your encouragement, we’d value your subscriptions even more!

‘C’mon the Bay’, we need to work on that together.

Your support as a BayBuzz subscriber would help us improve this publication for Hawke’s Bay – more topical diversity, more depth, more fun.

Whether you subscribe or not (don’t be a FreeBee: see page 55 for directions), at our one-year anniversary now is the time we could especially use your feedback. Our team will be doing a bit of stocktaking. What have you liked, or not? What would you like to see more of, or less? What’s missing in style or coverage? Please send your suggestions to editors@baybuzz.co.nz

We are hugely grateful that advertisers have been so responsive to our magazine, especially in tough times. Over 70 HB businesses have advertised in BayBuzz so far. They support us. We ask you to support them.

There’s an important new direction you’ll see in this edition. We are delighted that EIT has become a strategic partner, sponsoring BayBuzz reporting on education issues. BayBuzz retains its editorial independence, but receives support that will ensure our magazine gives education issues in our region the in-depth coverage they deserve, as Hawke’s Bay grapples with under-achievement in a significant part of our population. See BayBuzz writer Jessica Souter Barron’s feature, Removing Deficit Thinking, for the first fruits of this relationship.

In our July/August edition, we’ll bring forward

another strategic partner, providing special support for our coverage of the region’s business and economic issues.

About half of this edition presents a wide spectrum of views on water issues in Hawke’s Bay. Why? Because crucial choices about water supply and quality are immediately before us, soon to be decided. On page 7, I explain this focus more fully, leading into a series of provocative articles.

The balance of the magazine presents a broad range of topics.

I’ve already mentioned education. On the contentious fracking issue, we give the floor to Pauline Elliott of lobby group Don’t Frack the Bay. BayBuzz writer Keith Newman looks into another controversy – shoreline protection (or not) at Westshore. And, in Maori Economy: Brimming with Potential, he reviews the state of Maori-led businesses in Hawke’s Bay … potential one pundit terms more latent than realised.

BayBuzz writer Kay Bazzard begins a regular column, The Best Years of Our Lives, on the trials and tribulations of growing old in Hawke’s Bay, with a special focus on Boomers, the first of whom are already age-66.

In The Hottest Destination in the Region, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins updates on the rebuilding of the Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery, including behind-the-scenes work to protect the collection and plan the opening exhibitions.

Inside Havelock North looks at ‘How’s business?’ in the Village. And They’re Back once again profiles a few individuals who have left the battlefields of Wellington, Auckland and beyond to continue more peaceful lives in Hawke’s Bay.

Finally, in Riding the Trail, Brendan Webb writes of his ill-fated attempt to re-capture the glory of his cycling past.

Enjoy. But don’t be a FreeBee … stop putting it off … subscribe! We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t need your support.

Tom Belford

KEITH NEWMANKeith is a journo with nearly 40-years’ experience across mainstream and trade media. He’s won awards for writing about hi-tech, produces Musical Chairs programmes for Radio NZ and has published four books, one on the internet in

New Zealand and three on NZ history.

may/ june 2012

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ONEYEAR

EDITOR Tom Belford

SENIOR WRITERS Kathy Webb, Jess Soutar Barron, Keith Newman, Mark Sweet,Tom Belford

COLUMNISTS Brendan Webb, Claire Hague, David Trubridge, Des Ratima, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Elizabeth Sisson, Janet Luke, Kay Bazzard, Paul Paynter, Phyllis Tichinin, Roy Dunningham

EDITOR’S RIGHT HAND Brooks Belford

PHOTOGRAPHY Tim Whittaker

TOM BELFORDTom’s past includes the Carter White House, building Ted Turner’s first philanthropic organization, doing heaps of marketing consulting for major nonprofits and corporates. Tom publishes BayBuzz and writes an

acclaimed blog for professional NGO fundraisers & communicators in North America and Europe.

MARK SWEETNapier-born, Mark worked overseas in Hong Kong and Scotland, but returned to Hawke’s Bay, launching Pacifica restaurant. Selected for the Mãori Literature Trust’s Te Papa Tupu programme where he was mentored in refining his

just-released novel, Zhu Mao. He’s publishedPortrait & Opinion with Richard Brimmer.

CONTRIBUTORS > FROM THE EDITOR >

HAWKE’S BAY’S FINEST HOMES & LIFESTYLES

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Why does BayBuzz devote half of this magazine to freshwater issues?

Because the environmental, recreational, cultural and economic values of Hawke’s Bay are totally intertwined in our rivers, and we are about to make hugely important decisions about them. Starting with the Tukituki, but extending to the rest of our rivers as well. Decisions whose impact will be felt for generations.

A half-billion dollar water storage scheme in the Tukituki catchment. Possible curtailing of sewage discharge into the Tuki. Two dams in the Ngaruroro catchment. A complete re-write of the ‘rules of the game’ governing water allocation for irrigation throughout the region. New standards for water quality and river flows. Fracking.

What we grow and produce in Hawke’s Bay, whether we restore our biodiversity and our acclaimed trout fisheries, whether we enhance our recreational opportunities, who will control and own our water infrastructure, how much we will spend to ensure ample and clean fresh water … all will be determined by decisions now working their way through the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

First up are huge decisions regarding management of the Tukituki. So we have focused on those. But understand the Tuki issues and you will understand what’s at stake with the rest as well.

We present a great deal of information and a wide range of views in the pages that follow. You’ll hear from environmentalists, farmers, Mãori, the Regional Council itself, advocates tilting for or against the schemes being proposed.

Thirty-four pages on freshwater! We don’t want to drown you. But you’ll see it’s not just BayBuzz who regards these issues as urgent. Virtually all of our political, business, farming and environmental leaders do, and they are already waist deep, pushing the decision-making this way or that.

However, these issues are too important to the future of the Bay’s environment and economy to be left to them. Any ‘solutions’ require a broad, informed public mandate. These are your rivers, carrying your water … and they should be managed according to your values.

Every two years, Lincoln University conducts a massive nationwide survey seeking to determine just what the values and attitudes of New Zealanders are with respect to freshwater and our rivers.The latest survey reports that:

• 60% strongly agree there should be no further significant pollution discharges into the water.

• 60% agree more water should be left in rivers and streams for environmental and recreational reasons.

• 52% say the #1 cause of damage to freshwater is farming.

• 75% disagree (25% strongly) that in freshwater management decisions the main emphasis should be economic.

• 64% agree that on their own, voluntary approaches by commercial water users do not protect the environment.

• Finally, 82% agree regulations that are enforced are a good way to protect the environment.I suspect a great many people in

Hawke’s Bay share these views. In fact, I’ve challenged the Regional Council to conduct a professional benchmark survey in Hawke’s Bay asking exactly the questions as the credible Lincoln University study.

What you believe is critical. Because as you’ll see, much of the debate revolves around two critical areas – what ‘balances’ to strike between economic and environmental considerations, and the extent to which ‘best practices’ should be required of (not urged upon) farmers.

Form an opinion as you read our articles. Then express it!

by ~ TOM BELFORD

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?WATER

From mountains to sea, the Tukituki presentseconomic opportunity, but only if it can be

harnessed in an environmentally sound way,as Jess Soutar Barron reports.

Can farmers and

co-exist on the Tukituki?

ishers peacefullyf

Feature

Bee in the know ~ m

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opportunities, and protecting nature’s intrinsic values.

The Tukituki is a playground, but it’s also a crucial part of our agricultural and horticultural spine. It is an integral cog in our infrastructure, an economic engine, and pivotal to our sense of place and purpose as a region. We ask a lot of our Tukituki. This creates a number of issues, with many people and interests involved: water allocation being one, runoff from farms and sewage discharge being others – what goes in, what comes out.

Ups and downs of waterNearly 500 consents permit water to

be taken from the Tukituki catchment by property owners, mainly for irrigation. But it’s accepted that too much water has been allocated, placing the river ecosystem and recreational values under stress. Certainly in high summer the low flow is too low. But rights are rights and resource consents are resource consents. Clawing back allocation is seen as tricky to navigate – who gets water and who misses out?

The journey to resolution begins close to where the Tuki’s own journey starts, in the Ruataniwha plains. Here, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is proposing the construction of a $200 million dam and

For Kiwis, rivers are life-blood. Mauri. They feed our spirit, energise us. They are a place of recreation, a place to play, a vital link in our economic potential. For visitors who have been wooed by the 100% Pure New Zealand promotion, rivers and the recreation opportunities they conjure up, are part of the pull.

In Hawke’s Bay, the Tukituki runs 110km north and east from the Ruahine Ranges where the headwaters start in the same hills as the Manawatu River.

It flows past Waipawa and Waipukurau, into Hastings District, where it runs down Middle Road to Kahuranaki Road and then under Red Bridge, to Black Bridge. It meets the sea just north of Haumoana.

In many ways the Tukituki is our defining river, it is certainly the one that makes it into the photographs.

And what is our picture of a perfect river? Clean, clear, cool fresh water; fish, insects, birdlife. A setting for picnics, swimming, angling, kayaking. Traditionally the backdrop for our idyllic day by the river is pastoral: An orchard, a vineyard, a dairy farm.

Here is where we find ourselves walking a fine line between supporting a vibrant economy, enjoying sustainable recreation

distribution scheme, which will ultimately require $300 million or more when on-farm costs are included.

What farmers want is security of water supply … already an issue, and one that will worsen as global warming begins to take its bite. So to farmers, the ‘promise’ of the dam is increased and more reliable water supply. HBRC’s aim is that consent

9

To farmers, the ‘promise’ of the dam is increased and more reliable water supply.

“If you’ve got it right for trout, you’ve got

it right for all.” pete mcintosh

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Continued on Page 10 »

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Feature

The Tukituki is a pretty unhealthy river at the moment.

holders will be migrated to stored dam water for their irrigation, leaving the Tukituki to flow its merry way un-tapped. HBRC talks of a 30% increase in flow. There is even a vague hope that the river might return to “close to normal flows” (Draft Long Term Plan 2012-2022).

However, the dam will also enable up to 30,000 hectares of additional irrigated land, that is, thousands more hectares of intensified farming. Depending on the mix of land use – how many sheep, cows, apples, grapes, potatoes, dairy – this will cause even more nitrates and phosphates to enter the water. The trickle-down effect, pun intended, is that the water in the Tukituki will have even more nutrients in it, harming aquatic life and diminishing recreational values.

But nutrient run-off from farms is not the Tuki’s only problem. Its other major source of pollution is wastewater effluent from two sewage treatment settling ponds, one in Waipawa and one in Waipukurau, which is discharged into the river.

The Environment Court has put new limits on what can be pumped into the river and by 2014 Central Hawke’s Bay must clean up its act. CHB’s first option, pumping half its discharge onto land and the rest into the river, has been opposed by 20 of 23 submitters on the scheme and, for the moment, is tabled.

A second option – using worms to eat up offending nutrients – is being reviewed as we write. Whatever option CHB pursues, clearly the clock is running and environmentalists are determined to force compliance with the Environment Court’s more stringent standards.

“The Tukituki is not broken”In a recent Ministry for the

Environment league table for nutrient levels in New Zealand rivers, the Tukituki fares quite badly. Of 77 rivers, the Tuki is ranked number 51 overall (measured at Red Bridge). For nitrogen it takes 61st place; for phosphorus, 39th; and biological health, 56th.

However, Iain Maxwell (HBRC’s Group Manager of Resource Management, who looks after water quality), believes the Tukituki is not polluted … or at least not seriously so.

“The Tukituki has some need for intervention to manage community expectations, but we’re not at a stage where it’s broken, it’s not.” He does say the Council is putting a lot of effort into nutrient levels and what sensitive species can cope with.

Maxwell stresses Council has a classic balancing act to maintain between community expectation and management of the river.

“As a nation we need to earn our way in the world. It’s a balance to get the mix right. However, we cannot go back to an unmodified environment, we live in a modified environment. But it’s about enabling communities; giving them tools and resources to earn a living, as well as go for a swim or a fish.”

Maxwell, as a keen fly fisherman, understands the importance of fish to the Tukituki, and to those who enjoy getting out into the river.

He warns against something called ‘Prestige Bias’, slanting statistics around fish stocks, size, condition and numbers.

“Anglers will always remember the biggest fish caught on their very best day. It’s fair to say that the trout fishery has changed, but nobody could confidently say how it’s changed. With any fishery there’s a bell curve, fish do respond to some additional nutrients in a positive way. Some nutrient is not entirely a negative thing.”

Fish and Game’s Regional Manager Pete McIntosh sees the quality and quantity of fish in the river is about much more than simply anglers’ braggadocio.

“The Tukituki is a pretty unhealthy river at the moment,” says McIntosh. “Phosphorus feeds algae, most noticeably periphyton biomass, and that changes the insects in the river, and then the fish don’t grow as numerous or as big.”

10

»

The Makaroro siteCHB poo ponds discharge into Tukituki Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

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The Tukituki is a pretty unhealthy river at the moment.

power in the river to flush out pollutants.”For Scott there are a number of issues

with the Tuki that need correcting before any ‘solutions’ are committed to.

Scott has formed Friends of the Tukituki, a group to highlight issues with the river and tackle them at a Regional Council level. He also sits on the Hawke’s Bay Environment Water Group and is a member of both the Hastings and Napier Anglers’ Clubs. He is an environmentalist, a fisher and also understands the ins and outs of local government, having worked alongside councils on many projects over the years. He believes river users need to become much more switched on to what’s happening in the Tukituki.

“If you don’t look after it, you’ll lose it. Every person in Hawke’s Bay pays Regional Council rates – we all have a voice and we can use it. We’ve got to pick up ownership of the Tukituki. If we don’t, people with money will pick it up and steal it. When you get to my age, you can see things unfolding and with the Tukituki there’s a real risk that it’ll get worse. I live in hope, but I am sceptical.”

Pete McIntosh is very clear on what he wants for the future of the Tukituki: “A river that is swimmable, fishable and safe for food gathering. What we want is higher flows of better quality water – if you can get that you’ve solved it all.”

He adds: “Fish and Game is not against economic development, but it needs to be sustainable. We support a growing economy for the region, but only when it’s achieved and promoted within an environmentally sustainable framework.”

Irrigation impactsAndrew Newman, CEO of the Hawke’s

Bay Regional Council, is also mindful of the careful balance the river demands.

“Irrigation impacts on the flows are an important element of the conversation, particularly in those intense times of the year when really everyone wants access to the river for recreational fishing, swimming, aesthetics, as well as for the agricultural production further up in the catchment,” says Newman.

The HBRC readily admits that taking water from the Tukituki to irrigate exacerbates issues with the river, but sees the dam and water storage as potentially a win/win situation: more (and more secure) water for farmers, together with higher flows supporting a healthier river.

But more irrigated land will put more nutrients and sediment into the river. The nutrient loads will depend on how the land is used. However, it is almost impossible

But are the trout happy?For McIntosh, trout are the key indicator

for water quality. If the trout are happy then the water is healthy. That means a good environment for the complete habitat and ecosystem, including native fish, migrating eels, glaxids and insects, as well as birds like dotterels and stilts, all of which feed on invertebrates.

“If you’ve got it right for trout you’ve got it right for all,” he says.

McIntosh is also concerned about the dam project and where it lies in terms of the river. He explains that the HBRC did look at sites in gullies (two at that stage) but now have moved to an in-stream dam. This itself can have catastrophic effects on fish and eels, some of which use these ancient river paths for spawning, returning to their own place of birth to lay their eggs.

David Renoulf of the Hawke’s Bay Environment Water Group has been fishing the Tukituki since he was a child and agrees with Fish and Game that trout are a gauge to the wellbeing of the water. He challenges the Council’s monitoring methods and believes the single most important factor in improving the quality of the Tukituki is to stop farmers putting too much nutrient on land in the first place.

John Scott has been fishing for over 60 years, and in the Tukituki since 1970. He is concerned that the proposed dam may add to the issues with the river before it rectifies anything.

“The philosophy behind water storage is a good one but what happens when people use that water? There may be extra water in the river but it’s contaminated – so what’s the good of that? I do not support water storage on its own. It’s got to work with the biodiversity of the river. The environment can’t be an after-thought.” Scott says. He also believes that although the HBRC carry out monitoring and testing in the river, this too is flawed.

“The Regional Council isn’t monitoring all the different types of pollutant, they’re very selective. Monitoring needs to happen. But policing? That’s a good question,” he says.

“The Regional Council set minimum flows but they can’t police them, and when the flow in the river gets low there’s no

11

“We want to return the river to its natural state during those periods of the year when it’s in very heavy use.” andrew newman

Continued on Page 12 »

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Feature

To date we have used non-regulatory approaches and what we’ve done in the past hasn’t worked.

As Dr Mike Joy, Lecturer in Ecology and Environmental Science at Massey University, points out … if the problems with the river turned the water red we wouldn’t have a problem because people would be able to see it. The water looks okay, if you ignore the algal blooms, so to really understand the issues we have to understand what’s going on below the surface.

There are three ‘pollutants’ in the Tukituki: Pathogens are actual pollutants that come from sewage, and make people and animals sick. There is also sediment and nutrients. Both of

these are fine on land, the problems occur when they get into the water.

Sediment makes water murky and covers riverbeds in mud and silt. Fish are affected by sediment in two ways: it’s harder for fish to see prey and predators, and fish spawn gets covered, lost and killed by the silt. Pasture produces up to five times more sediment than forest. According to the Parliamentary Commissioner’s report Water Quality in New Zealand (March 2012), “Every year 200 million tonnes of sediment washes down New Zealand rivers into the sea (and) this soil is lost forever.”

A key contamination issue in our Tukituki is nutrient enrichment, chiefly from farm runoff, but also from sewage discharge. Nutrients help algae grow. Algae gets to a certain size and fish are no longer able to feed. Nutrients in the water also change which insects are present, the

ones favoured by the fish are not often the ones that make the cut.

Nutrients come in two flavours: phosphorus and nitrogen. Both these lead to rampant weed growth, because they are after all fertilizers. The difference between the two nutrients is that phosphorus sticks to soil – and gets to the river mainly through sediment – and nitrogen is soluble in water.

An off-shoot of nitrogen is ammonia, which comes from stock urine. Cows, given the chance, are 50% more likely to ‘discharge’ in water; that’s why riparian strips are so important.

Nitrogen helps grass grow, but it can prove too much of a good thing. When the grass has had its fill, the excess leaches. While some can be absorbed by riparian strips (where they exist), excess nitrogen can still penetrate the soil and find its way into the water. Nutrients in water do what they do on land, they make plants bigger. But in water that means periphyton, macrophytes and phytoplankton, or algal blooms.

And it’s not just farmers: A quarter of the phosphorus found in wastewater would be eliminated if everyone switched to phosphorus-free detergents.

Simply put, environmental problems arise in rivers depending on how much water you take out and how much nutrient you put in. If you take water for irrigation this reduces flow and dilution, and nutrients become concentrated.

12

to project how land use will change when more irrigation is feasible.

More dairying, for example? One HBRC projection anticipates that one-third of CHB’s irrigated land would go into dairying. Dairying uses huge amounts of water and discharges equally significant amounts of waste. It needs careful, sustainable and concerted management of stock and pasture. And although no one in the debate wants to finger point: In every industry there are cowboys.

There is a fundamental presumption amongst HBRC planners and consultants that there’s significant room for improvement in farming practices that would mitigate the environmental impacts of intensified farming. Obviously, if everyone was already doing the right thing and the river’s already stressed, then there wouldn’t be headroom to accommodate even more farming on the irrigated land.

Farmers and farm scientists know about ‘best practices’ and interventions that can reduce farm pollution. Laundry lists of potential improvements are being prepared as the HBRC readies its case for the dam. But the trick is getting them adopted by the 200 or so farmers who would be served by the dam.

Helen Codlin is HBRC’s Group Manager Strategic Development and the person charged with planning how those who would have consents to take from the river might be required to meet environmental standards (which presently do not exist), how they will be monitored and then held to account.

“To date we have used non-regulatory approaches and what we’ve done in the past hasn’t worked,” says Codlin, who admits that the only people the HBRC has worked with on their resource management practices are those farmers who wanted to be worked with.

Andrew Newman agrees there’s a lot riding on the cooperation of the farming community. “There’s a significant change process for them with this particular journey, but our conversations so far have been open and pretty constructive.”

“We want to return the river to its natural state during those periods of the year when it’s in very heavy use,” he says. “We want to deliver three things: Environmental gains, economic gains, and community resilience. We are also saying that we will bring a variety of interventions into play with which to do that. Some of those are practice based, some of those are regulatory based and some of those are infrastructure based.”

A WATER QUALITY SCIENCE LESSON»

Summer slime near the Tuki’s Red Bridge

Bee in the know ~ m

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To date we have used non-regulatory approaches and what we’ve done in the past hasn’t worked.

confidence and that trust to get there,” says Newman. “Verification of a system as opposed to compliance of a specific, that’s where I’d like to see the whole regulatory system evolve to.”

“It’s not going to be simple and it will be horses for courses,” says Newman. But HBRC still hasn’t said exactly what the limits will be, how ‘prescriptive’ the conditions placed on water use will be, or what form penalties for breaches will take. Said one HBRC staffer: In Australia, they turn the water off.

Graeme Hansen, HBRC’s Group Manager Water Initiatives, is the project lead on the dam proposal. He’s philosophical about change in the behaviour of farmers.

“We’ve gone from the good old days where we didn’t know what we didn’t know, and farmers were saying let’s just pour it on, it doesn’t matter – be it water or fertiliser. I think there’s a real awakening in this world and in this region.”

What next?To summarise the issues:

• Will stringent minimum flow and water quality standards be set, and if so, how will they be enforced?

• Will farmers enjoying ample water as a result of the water storage scheme be required to do their bit for the good of the river … or merely encouraged?

• Will CHB deal effectively with its sewage discharge into the Tukituki?

It’s a lot to absorb, and not a lot of time to do it in. The water storage scheme is floated in HBRC’s Long Term Plan, which must be adopted by June 30. Yet key decisions about water quality standards, allocation mechanisms, and mitigation practices and enforcement are yet to be made.

In fact, the key land use and environmental studies have not been completed and released to the public. Yet the public’s opportunity to comment on the dam proposal will end on May 16. It seems the Regional Council has put the cart before the horse … perhaps leaving its process open to challenge.

Our picture perfect river setting might appear all right on the surface, but swim a little deeper and the future wellbeing of our wairua may not be so clear.

A question that hangs in the minds of many is: If there are rules for farmers upriver participating directly in the dam scheme, will those same restrictions apply to farmers downstream? And, how will farmers take to potentially draconian interventions around what they can or can’t do on their land – for example, limiting cows per hectare or fertiliser inputs?

HBRC claims there are a number of tools in their arsenal in terms of controlling what goes into the river and what is taken out for irrigation purposes. The main concept on the table involves two levels of protection.

First, as required by the new National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management, overall nutrient limits would be set for the first time via the Resource Management Plan for the Tukituki (probably on various segments of the river). Then, based on that framework, farmers’ individual consents to take water – in the form of contracts with the new water company that will own the water storage scheme – would include conditions setting forth required practices.

Of course, environmentalists will be concerned about the stringency of the overall water quality standards, about how protective the conditions placed on individual farmers are, and finally, about how – and how rigorously – they will be enforced.

“Audited self-management should be the way of the future and we have to build that

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Andrew Newman and Graeme Hansen, champions of water storage.

The Regional Council proposes a half-billion dollar dam project. Tom Belford asks, who pays, who owns, and is it worth it?

DAM(N)!A half-billion dollar water storage scheme

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HBcouncilshaveahistoryofover-estimatingbenefitsoftheirforaysintocommercialactivities.

All public hedging about feasibility studies aside, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council wants to build a dam on the Makaroro River in Central Hawke’s Bay. Full stop. And it’s moving mountains, with $5 million worth of analysis, to make a case that both economic betterment and environmental enhancement can be achieved by the project … and that we can afford the investment.

This article looks at the economic side of the proposition – its full costs, the economic benefits claimed, and the possible funding scenario and its implications. The Regional Council is still guarded in its public discussions of the scheme’s economic aspects, although it is clear that substantial financial analysis has been done and inquiries made to prospective financial players.

The most financial information is available in the Regional Council’s recently released Long Term Plan (LTP). In preparing this article, BayBuzz is relying additionally on ongoing conversations with HBRC senior staff, farmers and others who have heard HBRC presentations, and individuals associated with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company (HBRIC), which will eventually control and oversee the scheme if it goes forward.

What are the full costs?In its LTP, the Regional Council indicates

the dam infrastructure will cost $170 million, noting this is a best estimate, awaiting detailed engineering and design work. More recent comments indicate this number might reach $250 million.

However, this amount, itself daunting, is not the full scheme. The $250 million would cover construction of the dam itself, landscaping and earthworks associated with the 90 million cubic metre reservoir that would be created, and the headrace and other distribution infrastructure required to get the stored water to the farm gate (i.e. to individual farmer-users).

Much of the uncertainty around the ‘infrastructure’ cost relates to geotechnical issues and pending decisions about how water will actually be delivered to farmers – via canals or underground piping.

The significant further cost of the project actually relates to what happens to the water once it gets to the farms. Farmers need distribution systems to reticulate the water throughout their properties. One farmer (see Mark Sweet’s article) estimates his ‘on farm’ cost to irrigate a 330 hectare farm would approximate $500,000, or about $1500 per hectare.

Project spokesmen, including in

this magazine, have put the on-farm distribution price tag in the $300-$400 million range … “even more” than the $200+ million off-farm cost, as one HBRC presentation puts it.

Then there’s the cost to farmers of mitigating the environmental impacts of the additional and/or more intensified farming they would undertake. For example, planting riparian strips, fencing off streams, building cow sheds to capture more animal waste. Although the Regional Council insists that such safeguards will be part of the ‘deal’ that ensures environmental protection, no estimates of these costs have yet surfaced.

All in, therefore, it is not unreasonable to estimate the full cost of the storage scheme at closer to $500-$600 million. At this scale, the water storage scheme represents the biggest financial investment ever contemplated in Hawke’s Bay, and ranks as one of the biggest in all of New Zealand.

This investment would create for its owners (whoever they might be), an asset worth even more than the Bay’s much-prized Port, which has recently been re-valued at $177 million. It would dwarf – and some say, with unclear risks and returns, would put at risk – the Council’s entire existing investment asset base of $256 million.

As we’ll see later, HBRC doesn’t intend to fund the dam project on its own. Nevertheless, with the dam as the new keystone, HBRC direct investments are projected to grow to $488 million over the next ten years … a daunting prospect to any ratepayer.

From the farmer-user perspective, the huge macro-numbers ultimately boil down to, “What will it cost me to use the water on my farm?” The cost (to the farm gate only) currently mentioned is $9500 per hectare, although council staff signal that they’re aiming to get the figure down to the $6500/hectare range.

Ultimately, affordability of the stored water for individual farmers is key to the economic viability of the scheme. Right now, many farmers – including many who hold existing water consents they could simply retain – fear the price will be too high. If significant numbers elect not to participate in the scheme, the project falters. We’ll come back to this point.

Big benefits from big investment?Councils in Hawke’s Bay (indeed

throughout New Zealand) have a history of over-estimating the benefits of their forays into commercial activities. With a potential half-billion dollar investment

at hand, ratepayers have every right to expect the most meticulous accounting of claimed benefits.

It should be noted that Regional Council presentations in support of the dam project focus first and foremost on economic benefits, with environmental considerations treated largely as a necessary, but unmeasurable, adjunct. The HBRC has adopted the stance of an economic development agency, as opposed to committing itself to a set of sustainable environmental parameters within which suitable economic development can proceed. In the Council’s hierarchy, investors outrank environmentalists.

Ultimately, the accumulated benefits of all types must justify the investment … leaving aside, for the moment, to whom those benefits might actually accrue.

Most directly, surely benefits would accrue to farmers, who, with more water and more security of water (against potential drought) can produce – and earn – more off their land (increasing its capital value 50-100%, judging from Canterbury experience). Arguably, increased farmer earnings can be estimated from the ground up, looking farm by farm at what is being produced now, and what could be produced with more water, more reliably available.

“The water storage scheme represents the biggest

financial investment ever contemplated in

Hawke’s Bay.”

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value of what is already produced on the Plains – constitutes the core incremental value realized by building the dam.

To be sure, other benefits do accrue, but the further one moves from the actual farm output, the more speculative these become … a modeler’s delight. Enter the alchemy of ‘multiplier effects’.

There’s more irrigation equipment to be purchased, installed and maintained. If more veggies, milk, wool, meat or grapes are produced, there is more to be processed and potentially more value to be added. More fertilizer to be bought. More product to ship. More accountants required to count all the new money changing hands, and lawyers to write the contracts.

HBRC staff argue that pre-planning for the project is already driving improved scientific understanding of land/water interaction and environmental mitigation opportunities in the region; more cooperation amongst players in the food industry; identification of R&D, farm productivity, technology transfer and value add opportunities (and gaps). Viewed as a ‘greenfields’ opportunity, staff see the project’s feasibility work as yielding benefits whether or not the project proceeds.

Moving still further from the grower, other public benefits might accrue from the project. The Regional Council argues that the environmental and recreational values of the catchment might actually be enhanced – better fishing, swimming and kayaking, even restoration of native species and food collection.

Achieving the benefits of “farming within

HBRC is building such models (six or seven of them, we’re told)… and holding them close to the vest. However, this modeling requires making predictions about the future behavior of approximately 200-plus current owners of the more sizable farming operations in the area to be serviced by the scheme.

And the million dollar question becomes: How might their farming change? Or even more unpredictable, what might future owners do?

Of course the big worry of environmentalists is that there will be wholesale conversion to dairying, with its massive environmental impacts. Currently there are 80-100 dairying operations on the Ruataniwha plains.

It is widely assumed that dairying is the only activity that would yield the financial returns that can justify the huge investment in the scheme. But others (like Sam Robinson in this magazine) dispute that assumption, claiming that other farm production could be more valuable in the future. As one farmer noted, in ten years we could be growing a high value speciality food for the Japanese (or Chinese) that none of us has yet heard of.

Arguably, such is the speculation that afflicts all council efforts at commercial forecasting.

One ‘mosaic’ scenario that is mentioned projects one-third dairying, one-third cropping and one-third beef and sheep. But whatever the assumed mix of future farming, and whatever value is projected for the resultant output, that value – minus the

limits” (as one HBRC presentation puts it) presumes an adequate mitigation strategy and regulatory regime would be put into place … one able to cope with 25-30,000 more hectares of farming-generated pollution (as discussed in the articles of Jess Soutar Barron and Morry Black).

Finally, a handful of other benefits can be cited, from electricity generated at the dam (approx. 6.5 megawatts) to assumed revitalistion of a stagnant Central Hawke’s Bay (although in local job creation terms, most project-related employment will be short-term).

As you see, the benefits become more speculative and harder to quantify the further out you draw the circles from the individual farmer/grower.

Working with a battery of consultants, the Regional Council is attempting to quantify those economic benefits. One estimate HBRC has used is that the scheme would increase gross farm income from $111 million per annum to $290 million, while increasing the area’s GDP contribution from $125 million to $348 million.

Of course, New Zealand farming economics demonstrate that not all (or maybe even most) of these benefits accrue directly to the farmer who pays in the first instance for the water (or technically, the right to use the water infrastructure). Several farmers have noted that all those ‘upstream’ beneficiaries – for example, the processors and marketers – make their money by driving down the return to farmers. Fonterra is the exception … another inducement toward dairying from the farmers’ perspective.

Naturally, therefore, the individual farmer is less interested in the overall cost/benefit analysis than he is in the immediate return earned from his production. Those ‘other’ benefits accrue to others, raising the question, “Who should pay for this scheme?”

“Financial models require predictions about the

future behavior of 200+ current landowners.”

»

PhotocourtesyofTimWhittaker

Who should pay for and own the scheme?The Regional Council guards closely its

scenarios for funding the water storage scheme. This despite the fact that HBRC is seeking public ‘sign-off’ for the half-billion dollar project as part of consultation now underway on its LTP.

The LTP presents the scheme funding issues in a very superficial way. It simply prices the dam infrastructure at $170 million (not addressing the other costs discussed above), indicates that $80 million of this amount will come from HBRC itself (i.e., ratepayers) after sale of leasehold assets (but not Port shares), and that remaining funding will be assembled by the HB Regional investment Company (HBRIC), with vague references to “co-shareholders” and “prospective investors”.

Funding beyond the acknowledged $170 million core cost is hinted at, but not discussed in the LTP.

Other presentations and interviews indicate that additional funds would be sought from the Crown (tapping into a $400 million fund Government created for such schemes), iwi, perhaps processors, other private investors/lenders, and of course farmer-users.

If the project in its totality does cost $500 million or more, a great deal of money must

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be found somewhere. And someone must earn a return on that money.

So far, the Regional Council has not made public any ‘pie chart’ that indicates a likely funding scenario. So we can only speculate. Readers can fill in the adjoining pie chart with percentages they’re comfortable with!

HBRC clearly has been wooing Government for a share of its $400 million irrigation fund. A desire to be first in line is driving the speed of HBRC’s ‘feasibility’ study (which is about half-funded by MAF). Unless the Regional

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Council seriously stuffs up, it’s reasonable to assume some funding from central government, perhaps in the form of short-term equity that HBRIC or farmers buy back over time as cash flows permit.

The region’s iwi are touted as another potential source of funding for the project. Iwi in Hawke’s Bay are tipped to receive nearly $200 million in pending Treaty settlement payments. It’s not unreasonable to think that settlement groups might regard the scheme as a potential investment

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proposition the LTP notes would require special consultation), no funding source would be as controversial as private investors … especially if those investors are overseas entities. As the LTP states (perhaps ‘understates’ would be more apt): “A debate that may emerge in time is the degree to which this type of infrastructure is owned within the community, or offshore.”

As is evidenced by the broader political dust-up over state asset sales and, closer to home, the sale to the Chinese of Crafar Farms, one might expect the prospect of overseas investors ‘owning Hawke’s Bay water’ to stir up a wee bit of controversy. Even leaving aside ideological or philosophical arguments, foreign ownership involves the exporting profits from the scheme out of the region, as opposed to seeing them re-deployed within Hawke’s Bay.

Some would question whether absentee owners – whether based in Shanghai, Sydney or Auckland – are as likely as local owners to pursue and protect broader community interests and values, as opposed to near-term profit maximization.

Making the decisionA host of philosophical, ideological

and practical issues are wrapped up in the funding of a $500 million scheme, and its ultimate ownership.

These issues will be sorted by the HB Regional Investment Company, a recent creation of the Regional Council. It is HBRIC that will develop and oversee the project, including its financing, and ultimately create a subsidiary “Waterco” to directly own and operate the scheme.

The Governance board of HBRIC presently consists of three HBRC councillors – Fenton Wilson, Alan Dick and Christine Scott – and three private sector representatives – Andy Pearce (chairman), Jim Scotland and Sam Robinson. Many in the community opposed creation of the investment company; many who supported it wanted it private sector led. The result is this hybrid governance arrangement.

close to home. And perhaps their investment might be targeted at supporting the mitigation measures farmers would need to take to protect the environment.

However, as Morry Black points out in this magazine, not all Mãori are sold on the project. Indeed, some argue that the water is not the Regional Council’s to distribute in the first place.

General ratepayers, already in the pie chart and subsidizing farmers to the tune of at least $80 million, would probably expect the prime beneficiaries of the project – i.e., farmer-users – to pick up a major portion of the tab. But, as noted above, farmers are pressing for their share of off-farm costs to be as low as possible, rejecting $9500/hectare as unaffordable.

And, apart from off-farm infrastructure, it is not clear whether farmers’ on-farm costs would be subsidized in any way – for example, via low-interest loans from HBRIC (ie. ratepayers) or matching funds.

Given price uncertainty and the availability of water under current water consents, the ‘take-up’ rate at which farmers might (or might not) enter the scheme is still unknown, meaning that the huge upfront infrastructure investment will only gradually build up a cash income to pay returns to investors or lenders.

It is crucial to recognize that the only source of income (or return on capital to scheme owners) is solvent farmers earning enough from their enhanced production to pay capital charges and ongoing fees for water rights. Presumably, if these earnings are insufficient, and farmers are unable to make payments, other owners of the scheme – expecting profitable returns on their investment (the LTP indicates a target return of 6%) – will get grumpy. And in the worst case, trigger foreclosures. Water rights ownership becomes land ownership. Would HBRC or HBRIC step in to prevent that scenario?

Which brings us to the involvement and expectations of private investors in the scheme.

Apart from “selling the Port” (a

The three private members are each seasoned hands – Pearce runs a similar but larger investment company for Christchurch and is a key player in Canterbury water issues; Scotland occupies various agribusiness roles, but is probably best known locally as chairman of the Port of Napier; Robinson is a CHB sheep & beef farmer serving as chair of the water storage ‘project leadership group’ and as chair of AgResearch.

While the Regional Council will make the political decision on whether to proceed with the water storage initiative, eyes will principally turn on these three when it is time to judge the economic viability of the water storage scheme. All three should instill a certain sense of confidence in the final financial review of the project.

That said, arguably, the chair of the Port would be pre-disposed to welcome an initiative that promised more traffic and earnings for the Port; and Robinson as official chief cheerleader for the project is not exactly dispassionate about its potential value (see Sam’s article in this magazine).

All the more reason their probity and credibility will be on the line when they endorse (or not) the biggest single public investment yet considered in Hawke’s Bay.

Of course, final responsibility for passing judgement on the overall economic and environmental case for the water storage scheme rests in the hands of the Regional Council. Clearly, their LTP signals that they already believe they have a win/winner on the table.

If you have a view on the matter, you had best make a submission on HBRC’s long term plan by May 16, or talk with your favourite Regional Councillor before the LTP is adopted in late June.

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“Eyes will turn on these three when it’s time to

judge the economic viability of the scheme.”

AndyPearce JimScotland

SamRobinson

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The possibility of a large water storage project on the Makaroro River offers huge opportunities for Hawke’s Bay.

This would be a 77 metre high storage dam, capable of holding 90 million cubic metres of water, creating a lake two and a half times the size of Lake Tutira, and potentially capable of producing up to 6.5 megawatts of electricity.

And this is all before we even consider the environmental, economic and social benefits, which are the main drivers behind this project. It’s a project that requires an investment of around $200 million to construct and up to a further $400 million for on-farm irrigation investment.

The economic benefits and the environmental pay-offs from such a large investment are equally great. It could see almost all irrigation consents taken off the Tukituki River, allowing it to revert to natural summer flows.

In a conventional sense the economics are marginal, given the significant up-front capital injection required to construct such a scheme. Long-term, the proposed scheme is enormously beneficial, with opportunities for increased on-farm employment, as well as off-farm employment in high wage jobs, such as precision engineering, plant servicing, marketing and processing of crops.

This project, in time, will lead to a more diverse community, additional employment opportunities, more wealth, better infrastructure and increased opportunities for recreation.

Driving from the topWe’re fortunate to live in a region with

a high degree of social and economic cohesion, as well as having reasonable natural resources. We have a bold and visionary regional council with a strong balance sheet, and leadership that is prepared to make a difference for future generations.

Part of this leadership style includes strong and focused communication in this project through Leadership and Stakeholder Groups which ensures those most closely-affected are kept informed and encouraged to comment as the project progresses. I take my hat off to HBRC for this cohesive and inclusive approach, which I believe will pay dividends in the long run.

Putting water storage into contextIn 1960 the globe required 0.44 of a

hectare to feed one person. By 2050 this will reduce to just 0.15 of a hectare. By 2050 I predict that there will also be a much higher percentage of the global population demanding high quality food that is safe and produced in an environmentally and ethically responsible way. Our goal in New Zealand will be to sell to customers where price is not their first consideration.

New Zealand’s core business has always been food production and for that to continue we must invest in new and better ways of producing sophisticated high value food for the discerning global customer who can afford to pay.

To grow food you need soil, sun and water. In Hawke’s Bay we have good soils and plenty of sunshine. The limiting issue is water – not the amount, but its availability at critical times. The Ruataniwha Water Storage scheme is about harvesting the peaks to fill the troughs, returning both economic and environmental benefits.

This scheme gives irrigators water security; at the same time, taking those irrigators off the Tukituki River will allow it to resume its natural summer flows.

Let’s talk about the environment Close to $5 million will be spent on the

feasibility studies into this project, with a significant contribution from the Crown. By far the bulk of this expenditure has been vested in understanding the environmental impacts, as well as the economic and social impacts of this project.

These studies are a lot more than just where the dam will go and how big it will be. There are 118 separate streams of work underway within the feasibility study, including:• Land intensification studies • Work on both terrestrial and

aquatic ecology• Social impact assessments• Recreation assessments• A landscape study• Cultural assessment• Traffic and noise assessments

The environment is not being ignored in this process. There is a real determination to understand how this scheme will impact on the environment and to ensure that any detrimental effects are absolutely minimised and that any opportunity to

enhance the environment is taken. In fact this whole project is driven by

HBRC’s desire to get irrigators off the Tukituki River and improve the state of the river. This scheme is a win-win situation for Hawke’s Bay’s economy and for the environment.

So what about land use…Let’s be honest – the water produced

from the proposed water storage project will be expensive. Therefore it is predicted the existing land use will have to change for the farms to remain economic.

High performance farming will be needed, with growers and farmers managing their inputs in a very sophisticated way, using high value crops, which will also provide more employment opportunities.

Given the cost of this water, growers and farmers will move to ‘just in time’ irrigating rather than ‘just in case’, and will still rely on rainfall when it’s there.

One of the benefits of this scheme compared to many others in New Zealand is that it is expected the water will be delivered to the farm gate under pressure in a pipe. That means significant saving in on-farm pumping costs, which in the case of extracting water from a 100m deep well can be around $400 a hectare per year.

The “d’ wordI am aware there are concerns we will

end up with a 25,000 hectare dairy farm on the Ruataniwha Plains. Inevitably, there will be more dairy conversions. That’s understandable because the reality is that dairying is New Zealand’s only truly global business. It is a proven and reliable land-use.

The concern with dairying focuses on the detrimental environmental effect cows can have if they are not managed correctly. I believe there should be the opportunity to tie the right to water to certain environmental behaviours and standards. This would include:• Good management• Good intent• Riparian strips• Modern effluent control methods• Nutrient budgets, etc.• And finally, strong policing from

the regulatorIn the long run we can expect a mosaic

of land use; however we may well transit through dairy cows to get there.

Harvesting the peaksby ~ Sam RobinSonChairman, Ruataniwha Water Storage Leadership Group

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to occur. My plea to the analysts is to use a conservative (low) discount of future benefits – this potential asset will have a payback period of 100 years.

Who will own the water storage scheme?Let’s make it clear – we are not talking

about ownership of the water. This is ownership of the infrastructure and distribution network.

One would hope and expect that HBRC will be a foundation investor. This investment could be seen in two parts – partly facilitating the environmental benefits from taking existing irrigators off the Tukituki River to enable the restoration of natural summer flows, and partly facilitating the economic benefits for the entire region.

The second investor will likely be the Crown. It’s no secret the Government is keen on irrigation as a method of kick-starting New Zealand’s economy. When Primary Industries Minister David Carter visited the proposed site of the project earlier this year, he said the project “ticked all the boxes” and he and Prime Minister John Key were keen to see “some runs on the board” with irrigation projects.

HBRC and the Government may be transitory owners in the short to medium

term before enabling their shares to be sold on to the farmers.

I see farmers as the third group of owners. They are the logical owners of the scheme and hopefully, after their initial 3-5 years of investing in on-farm irrigation infrastructure, they will be in a position to take over equity from the Crown and HBRC.

Next, I see other natural infrastructure investors such as Iwi, NZ Super, ACC and high net worth individuals. Finally there are also off-shore investors to consider.

ConclusionThis scheme can really boost the

Hawke’s Bay economy. The economic benefit will obviously start in CHB, but it will logically and literally flow throughout the whole region.

As well as economic benefits, by taking irrigators off river there will be strong environmental benefits. The river will be able to revert to its natural summer flows. It is a win/win solution.

The only question in my mind is which generation will build the dam. We have a unique set of circumstances with both Regional and Central Government support and I hope the wider community take up the opportunity we now have.

So what will secure irrigation achieve?Any irrigation scheme when it’s installed

is ALWAYS expensive; but in hindsight I have never met a farmer who EVER regretted it.

This is an inter-generational investment. If we don’t do it the next generation will, but it will be a lot more expensive.

Take as an example the Opuha Dam in South Canterbury. When it was first initiated shares were $60 a hectare – 25 years later they’re trading at $3,000 a hectare.

Secure irrigation will inevitably lead to more sophisticated, technically challenging and higher value crops. That is what’s happened in Canterbury where they’ve had irrigation for 40 to 50 years. That region now produces 50% of the world’s carrot seeds, and 40% of the world’s radish and red-beet seeds. The great thing about crops such as these is that not only do you get high returns for the farmer who grows them, but you get much more diverse employment beyond the farm gate.

There is still much more detailed economic analysis to be done as the Ruataniwha Storage scheme is prepared for possible consent application and marketing to investors. This is a very large project and you would expect that sort of rigour

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Ideas & Opinions

This scheme is a win-win situation for Hawke’s Bay’s economy and for the environment.

Sites selling now

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A lake once covered the Ruataniwha Plains, and its name remembers the two, human-eating, taniwha who lived there. One day they fought over a boy who had fallen into the lake, and so fierce was their battle, their writhing tails slashed the land; the lake drained, and the Waipawa and Tukituki rivers were formed.

Geological history tells us the lake was once part of a long narrow seaway running between Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa. The Plains formed through millions of years of tectonic activity, glaciation, and the depositing of limestone, silts, sands and gravels. Before the land was cleared for grazing, it was covered in flaxes and grasses, with

kanuka on the dry patches, and stands of kakatia and totara.

The plan to build a $200 million dam and infrastructure, to provide ample water for year round irrigation on the Ruataniwha Plains, will – advocates say – unlock the productive potential of the land. The soil types range from rich silts capable of supporting vegetable crops to patches similar to the Gimblett Gravels, perfect for grapes. Much is suitable for dairy farming. The area involved is 25,000 hectares, a comparable amount of productive land as the Heretaunga Plains.

The Regional Council is investing $5m in a feasibility study and are consulting with interested parties. Conceptually, general opinion sees water storage as a

good idea. But it’s the details that matter, and following are the opinions of some of the folk with interest in the process.

ANDREW WATTS

Andrew Watts is 5th generation Central Hawke’s Bay. He’s farmed in Porangahau, Onga Onga, Takapau, and Ashley Clinton. As well as sheep and cattle, he’s farmed dairy cows, and grown vegetables and fruit trees. In 1983 he pioneered large-scale spray irrigation on his farm on the Takapau Plains. He currently operates a sawmill for untreated timber in Waipukurau.

by ~ MARK SWEET

FARMERSMULL OVERWATER STORAGE

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

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The Plains won’t all go into dairying. It will be a myriad of farming types.

“I’m an environmental realist living and acting with a consideration for our environment while being realistic. Considering the environment is part of my makeup, but we have to do things to make the community prosper. We need to create jobs in the farming sector and ag-related businesses, but not at the expense of the environment.

I’m not getting myself in a lather over this dam because nothing will happen unless it’s bankable. Unless the farmers can borrow the money and make it pay, this dam won’t happen. Most of the farmers left are my age and older and they’re not going to borrow that money, so this dam could exponentially modify land ownership in Central Hawke’s Bay. Many will be forced to sell.

Dairying is the only thing you can produce on the land in New Zealand where the person who is collecting the product is trying to pay you as much as they can. Every other product we produce, the person who’s buying and processing, is trying to pay you the least amount of money.

While the Fonterra model persists you won’t stop the dairy cows. The farmer owns the product from the farm to the sale. Everyone else like Richmonds and Affco and Wrightsons are all trying to pay the farmer as little as they can. So all these ideas of growing beetroot and so on is going to be bloody hard work. Most crops are so subject to weather. Not dairy cows.

For this dam to work they have to get the costs right and they have to put in some rules so we can’t degrade the river systems. We have to have nutrient caps, and nutrient budgets. And that might mean caps on the amount of livestock they run per hectare as well. And they’ll have to spread their effluent more efficiently, not just on a few paddocks, but over the whole farm.

The dam cannot go ahead and have livestock in the system, that’s dairy farming, unless the streams are fenced

off. I think there should be margins planted in natives, but they have to be decent margins so they’ve got filtration ability. The dam is not a goer unless the major streams in the Tukituki system are fenced and planted properly. Farmers won’t like it, but I’m prepared to stand up to that.

Dairying is not the only thing that could pay the bills. Only a few years ago spud growers in Central Hawke’s Bay were making more money than cows, but you wouldn’t want to know some of the fertilisers and chemicals going into these processed crops. You can get uptight about the nitrogen coming from cow pee, but if you see the amount of fertiliser and spray that goes into potatoes you could get uptight about that too.

A big plus for irrigation is that the guys who’re putting high fertiliser on and irrigating have less leaching problems than those who high fertilise hoping it’s going to rain … because when it rains heavily, it just washes off. Irrigation gives the farmer more control over the uptake of the inputs.

My first job as a 16 year old was on the biggest spray irrigator in the Southern Hemisphere in Ashburton. Ashburton was a town about the size of Dannevirke then, but if you went there today you’d find a thriving, vibrant humming town. And it’s irrigation that’s driven that. It was all pipes, no guns, that was 1968. There wouldn’t be any dairying in Canterbury without irrigation.

It’s interesting with the Fish and Game guys. They’re pretty proactive, but as I keep pointing out to them, they’re actually protecting the possum of the river. They’re protecting an introduced pest. Those trout, and I’ve been a trout fisherman since 1965, have eaten all the native fish. But that lobby is very cunning. They’re working on the clean state of the river but really they’re protecting their introduced pest.”

CAMPBELL CHARD

Campbell Chard is General Manager of BEL Group Dairy Farms overseeing seven properties in Central Hawke’s Bay carrying 7,500 cows. He has been involved in dairying all his life, having grown up in Taranaki on his family dairy farm.

“We’re really supportive of the dam. It’s a multi-generational exercise

bringing benefits to Hawke’s Bay over the next 100 years. But we have to make it pay in the next 2-5-10-20 years. That’s the conundrum we’re working through; making sure the price the dam is built for is able to be paid for by the users of the water. It has to stack up economically, and environmentally.

As a dairy farm business we have nutrient budgets. We have to manage our effluent well. We’re policed quite heavily on the use of effluent areas by the Regional Council. They have a

compliance team and we have to have a consent that allows us to apply effluent to land. We’re already operating within strong boundaries.

The Plains won’t all go into dairying. It will be a myriad of different land classes and farming types. Potentially it’s very exciting. I think the Regional Council’s got a strong community relationship. They listen well. There are good people running the business, and I think they’ll make sound decisions.

What dairy farmers understand well is that we can grow grass and put that grass in the vat as milk. And we don’t have to market it. Fonterra comes along and picks it up and it’s their job to get us the best price. We need to be running

“I’m not getting myself in a lather over this dam

because nothing will happen unless it’s bankable.”

andrew watts

Continued on Page 24 »

Andrew Watts

Campbell Chard

an economic business to be able to look after our environment, and we need to look after our environment to have an economic business. Hopefully we can marry those two together well.

If there was an influx of dairying we’re confident that with the rules currently in place, without even making changes, it will not affect water quality. We’re stringently policed by the Regional Council, and we have a transparent open relationship where in our business we invite them to come in and be heavily involved in educating our people. Our focus is running an economic business and looking after the environment.

There are only 80 to 100 dairy farmers in Hawke’s Bay whereas there are 1600 to 1800 in Taranaki and in the Waikato something like 3000. That sort of monoculture won’t happen here. It’s not practical.

I see there’s a strong swing toward environmental considerations, but if that’s too strong, too weighted against the productive economic arm that’s doing its best to look after the environment, then the region will be disadvantaged. So it’s a process of mapping people’s expectations in making sure the environment is protected, but at the same time giving consideration to the business owner’s economic interests. Those two must go hand in hand. If it’s too severely weighted, one way or the other, that’s when you have issues.

I’ve worked in the Waikato where the Regional Council has a dogmatic ‘we will tell you’ attitude, whereas here there’s a consultative approach with buy-in by all parties who want to be involved. They seem to be transparent,

they’re considered in their options, and they have a good relationship with the farmers. It’s a great strength to have a Regional Council who consider what we have to say as being important. The Council has some big decisions to make but I think we’re in good hands.”

PHIL KING

Phil King began his farming career in 1961 on the family property on Plantation Road, which he retained when he leased and subsequently bought his own farm on the Ruataniwha Plains in 1973. In 2000, recognising the potential of dairying under irrigation, he set up an equity partnership and converted the family block. But he eventually sold up, releasing equity to assist his two sons onto their own farms. The family holdings now comprise over 2,600 hectares.

“This farm is 330 hectares. 50% is good silt country and 50% is light shingle; gravel country like the Gimblett Gravels with little benefit for farming, but it’s ideal for grapes. I approached a winery years ago, and they were interested, but they needed more water. My water consent is for 18,000 cubic metres per week, but I only use about 10,000. My allocation is 30 litres per second, 24/7. I have a 70 metre bore and I use a gun for irrigation.

Allocation is the figure the Regional Council work on. They say the water is all allocated, but it’s only utilised to approximately 35% to 40%. The water here might be all allocated in terms of statistical figures but it’s way under-utilised. Allocation means nothing. Utilisation is the key.

This summer I’ve cropped 70 hectares of peas, 40 hectares of barley, 18 hectares of squash, and 10 hectares of beans following the peas. Production from that 128 hectares is around 1250 tons of food. That’s what can be achieved with irrigation. Because it’s been a wet summer we’ve seen what we can do. But that’s not all. On top of that we wintered 1100 cattle on supplementary by-products and feed grown when the cash crops weren’t in the ground, as well as bailing 2000 medium squares of stock feed.

The figure on the board (for linking into the new water proposal) has been suggested at $9,500 per hectare. If that’s the figure they’re going to charge me, it will cost $3m. Then I’ll have to spend another half million on infrastructure. I doubt my bank would let me do that. It would

over-capitalise the farm. I’m better staying how I am now with my little gun, using my 30 litres strategically, instead of investing $3.5m. If they put the price too high, then they’ll force people to go into dairying.

I wouldn’t be able to grow squash or beans without irrigation, so all those crops that need irrigation will be grown down here if the proposal goes ahead, and the McCains and Watties of this world will be down here big time.

We have to manage crops very carefully in terms of what we produce and make sure we don’t over supply. It’s important to know that you don’t have to milk cows to make a viable business here. Dairying uses a lot more water than I use in my cropping and wintering business. So you have to have a system for charging for the water that is volumetric based.

The whole point of the exercise is to create enough water for us to irrigate The Plains, and to create enough flow to keep the river in better health, although I don’t think the river now is much different from its natural situation. I think a lot of the concerns about the Tukituki are mis-aligned. I’ve lived on the river all my life and the river dynamics haven’t changed in all that time. And from a fishing point of view it’s a healthy river. It’s one of the best fisheries in the country.”

“If they put the price too high, then they’ll force

people to go into dairying.”

phil king

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You have to have a system for charging for the water that is volumetric based.

»

Phil King

»

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ROSIE BUTLER & RODGER TYNAN

Rosie Butler & Rodger Tynan established Wine Rock Wines on limestone hills overlooking the Rautaniwha Plains in 2000. Rosie grew up on the family farm next door. Her experience as a wine maker includes five years with Montana in Gisborne, and with Petaluma in the Adelaide hills. Rodger’s expertise is in ecology, with a Master’s degree, and 15 years of monitoring the grazing impact on vegetation in the Australian outback.

“A lot of people regard water consents as money in the bank. Dairying uses staggering amounts of water. How’s the water allocation going to work? If it’s user pays then those who use the most water should pay for it. Vineyards are very efficient users of water.

There’s a lot of soil out there suitable for vineyards. Frost is the main issue. That’s why we’re on the hills. Years ago Montana was putting in vineyards around Tikokino, but farmers on the Council complained they wouldn’t be able to use 24D to control thistles. Vines are very sensitive to hormonal sprays up to 20k away. We had a case in Hawke’s Bay last year. It wipes out your leaves that year, and that stunts the growth the next year, and it can affect your vines for two or three years.

On the Ruataniwha Plains there are

a lot of different soil types and once they’re identified and mapped you can look at nutrient balances and budgets and determine how those soils will hold nutrients. Looking at ecological processes is important. You can’t really replace soil. Once you’ve buggered it, that’s it.

In collaboration with the universities, Massey and Lincoln, they could develop grasses suitable for the Plains that maximise efficiencies. With dairying you want a grass that provides the maximum sugar and protein for the cows, and the most efficient use of water.

The other thing to consider is soil mycorrhizal; the fungi under the root systems, which draw the sugars and extends the root systems. Well-managed, they can increase root systems up to seven times. You help achieve this by not digging the soil. Every time you plough you disrupt the structure of the soil, and you create a plough pan, so when it rains the water just goes in so far, and sits there. You don’t need to plough. Here they plough and harrow, and with a decent wind on a hot day you see the fines of that soil drifting away. In Australia you don’t see ploughing anymore.

The major issue with dairying is the amount of animals. Perhaps there should be a charge per head. Hoof impact should be considered too. On particular soil types, like silt and clay, compaction can be considerable where animals congregate, destroying the soil integrity.

Continued on Page 26 »

You have to have a system for charging for the water that is volumetric based.

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Rosie Butler and Rodger Tynan

following the railway line, through the Plains and up to the dam. There’s huge opportunity for tourism. It’s a matter of getting people enthused. And the community should be involved in the project. Retired people and the schools could be growing the seedlings and helping with planting out.”

If we’re talking user pays, then where you’ve got big herds trampling and defecating there’s substantial impact. Who pays for that greater nutrient run-off washed into the ground water?

Instead of monoculture crops they should scatter them with clusters of natives and flowering plants which host beneficial insects. Farmers are starting to think this way now, and the young ones coming out of Lincoln have learned the green technologies. You want a bit of chaos out there.

We’re part of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, which provides an environmental best practice model. And the dairy guys should be doing this, not through Fonterra, but independently. The standards and the stewardship might include how they shift cattle around, what grasses they use, irrigation methods, nutrient budgets, and how they handle all these different factors, and how they impact on the soil and the water. Hopefully dairy farmers can see the sustainable approach as a positive. It’s better for the environment and being sustainable is a marketing advantage.

I’d like to see a biking trail from Peka Peka and continuing along the old river bed, along the existing stop banks, or

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Who pays for that greater nutrient runoff washed into the ground water?

» “You can’t really replace soil. Once you’ve

buggered it, that’s it.”

rodger tynan

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

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We are concerned at the continual decline in Hawke’s Bay river quality.

The last 30 years has seen a sharp decline in quality due to land use practices bringing

intensification of livestock effluent and human waste run off into our river systems.

We don’t propose a return to the 19th Century when rivers were unconstrained, flooded and wandered where they will.

But ‘dump it in the river’ is no longer acceptable. We must remember future generations. Swimming along the length of our

rivers is a thing of the past as slime and bacteria have taken over many of the stretches we loved as children.

If we cannot hand over a cleaner river system we have all failed. Simple as that.

The proposed dam on the Makaroro River may be an opportunity to clean up that river but could threaten other

ecosystems by possible run-off from unrestrained farming practices. Through our waterways or by the

water table run-off pollution comes down through the river system and into our own Hawke Bay.

This is the one real chance the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has to lay down firm regulations for proper use of

land and the elimination of pollutants. Riparian planting, improved land use, crop farming and a balanced

approach from all users are the only solutions.

You Can HelpForest & Bird is active with many freshwater issues throughout Hawke’s Bay. Many of our over 700 members

in the Bay are making submissions to modify local government plans for our water ways. We participate in

stakeholder groups addressing management of the Tukituki and the Ruataniwha dam project.

It will be no use complaining in future years because we all sat and watched it happen today.

You can join Forest & Bird or make a donation to have your voice heard.

Help us preserve and enhance our natural waterways.

See our website

www.forestandbird.co.nz

Or contact our local Branch Secretaries for more information:

Napier: 06 845-0425 | Hastings/Havelock: 06 870-3477 | CHB: 06 858-8828

“Protecting our native plants, animals and wild places, on land and in our oceans. Help us to help nature.”

We are concerned at the continual decline in Hawke’s Bay river quality.

The last 30 years has seen a sharp decline in quality due to land use practices bringing

intensification of livestock effluent and human waste run off into our river systems.

We don’t propose a return to the 19th Century when rivers were unconstrained, flooded and wandered where they will.

But ‘dump it in the river’ is no longer acceptable. We must remember future generations. Swimming along the length of our

rivers is a thing of the past as slime and bacteria have taken over many of the stretches we loved as children.

If we cannot hand over a cleaner river system we have all failed. Simple as that.

The proposed dam on the Makaroro River may be an opportunity to clean up that river but could threaten other

ecosystems by possible run-off from unrestrained farming practices. Through our waterways or by the

water table run-off pollution comes down through the river system and into our own Hawke Bay.

This is the one real chance the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council has to lay down firm regulations for proper use of

land and the elimination of pollutants. Riparian planting, improved land use, crop farming and a balanced

approach from all users are the only solutions.

You Can HelpForest & Bird is active with many freshwater issues throughout Hawke’s Bay. Many of our over 700 members

in the Bay are making submissions to modify local government plans for our water ways. We participate in

stakeholder groups addressing management of the Tukituki and the Ruataniwha dam project.

It will be no use complaining in future years because we all sat and watched it happen today.

You can join Forest & Bird or make a donation to have your voice heard.

Help us preserve and enhance our natural waterways.

See our website

www.forestandbird.co.nz

Or contact our local Branch Secretaries for more information:

Napier: 06 845-0425 | Hastings/Havelock: 06 870-3477 | CHB: 06 858-8828

“Protecting our native plants, animals and wild places, on land and in our oceans. Help us to help nature.”

To tangata whenua, a river is a source of life, a provider of physical and spiritual sustenance, a teacher, a place of solace, reflection, nourishment, learning, and recreation. It is part of our whakapapa connection to the land.

Hapu along the Tukituki are rohe (tribal or hapu area) specific. Within the Tukituki catchment, there is not one Mãori view but a range of views, as the mana of our hapu is often expressed at the sub-catchment level. There appears to be a lack of respect for this however in current resource management planning. Current management of the Tukituki conflicts with many values inherent within tikanga Mãori. For a long time now, economics has been the main driver for setting water policy.

Issues arisingOur Regional Council recently

convened the Regional Planning Committee, which is seen as an opportunity for tangata whenua to share management of our taonga, including our rivers. Although co-management of rivers is out of kilter with the Treaty guarantee of full, exclusive and undisturbed possession, it seems to be a positive move. But as with a lot of government stuff the devil will be in the detail.

At time of writing, the planning committee consists of six representatives from Treaty claimant groups in Hawke’s Bay, plus all nine councillors. Originally there was talk of decision-making being done by consensus, but I understand

this has now gone out the window. The planning committee will oversee resource management matters linked to the Regional Policy Statement and changes to the Regional Resource Management Plan, including the up-coming Tukituki plan change. Plan changes pursuant to the

TUKITUKITHE

ALWAYS A TAONGA

The Tukituki River is regarded as a taonga (treasured possession) by the hapu of Tamatea and Heretaunga (CHB and Hastings Districts). It will always be a

taonga, and our fervent wish is that other river users will start treating it as such.

by ~ MORRY BLACK, Mauri Protection Agency

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statutory requirement. Consequently our indigenous fish species and their habitats have been allowed to decline to a state where the survival of several key species is seriously threatened.

Irrigators are reluctant to surrender any part of their allocation from the Tukituki, even when they aren’t using it. The last bulk consent renewals for the Tukituki revealed that many consent holders were using less than 60% of their allocations, and a couple hadn’t used any water at all, although they had held their consents for around ten years. Lately, water storage has been seen as a potential solution to the over-allocation issue, but the price of getting water from a dam on the Makaroro River to the farms on the Ruataniwha Plains is prohibitive.

Setting higher minimum flows across a range of sites and tributaries may provide Regional Council with leverage to induce farmers to change from ground or surface water takes to water from storage, as the higher trigger points will reduce security of supply. Whether these irrigators will pay for access to Makaroro water or store water on-farm though, is a moot point.

Minimum flows must be raisedMinimum flows are supposed to

retain sufficient water within rivers to protect environmental, social and Mãori cultural values. However, as a river falls below its minimum flow, these values are compromised. In practice, the needs of livestock grazed on irrigated pastures are prioritised over environmental and Mãori values, as water is still taken from rivers for stock purposes when a river is below this environmental bottom line.

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when the flow at the RDS gauging site near Highway 2 is around 2,800 litres per second. Ironically, the current minimum flow here is set at 2,300.

The Kahahakuri, Ongaonga, Mangamate and other Tukituki tributaries also run out of water on a regular basis. Part of the cause lies in Council’s past assumption that ground water was separate from surface water, and failure to acknowledge the interconnections between the two in their decision-making.

It was interesting to note during the land and water forum meetings, the desire to make our waterways swimmable. It would be difficult to swim in these rivers for much of a Hawke’s Bay summer. Swimmable implies action on top of or through the water. We may need to invent a new word for parts of the Tukituki system, because for much of the summer irrigation season, if any water is there, it’s only up to your ankles.

There is growing awareness of the interaction between rivers and streams and ground water resources on the Ruataniwha Plains. Ground water takes out here influence the flow of the Tukituki and Waipawa Rivers and aquatic health. Ground water abstraction needs to be subject to minimum flow restrictions currently under investigation by the HBRC. If we were to take the recommendations of the proposed National Policy Statement for Ecological Flows into account, plus the Cawthron Institute’s fish habitat work, the Tukituki minimum flows should be raised significantly.

Historically, concern has been confined to the habitat of trout, as this is a

Feature

Around 60–70% of nutrient in the Tukituki River is derived from agricultural run-off.

RMA allow for any party to contribute to the process, so the Tukituki plan change or parts thereof, could potentially be appealed by anyone to the Environment Court.

Other issues coming up in the near future are bulk consent renewals for the Tukituki in 2013, further policy development to inform the renewal of consents to take water from the Karamu and the Ngaruroro River, and perhaps designations and other issues related to the water storage dam in Central Hawke’s Bay.

Each of these deals with resources outside the rohe of current Mãori representatives on the planning committee. For various reasons, tangata whenua of Heretaunga and Tamatea who hold mana over the Tukituki and other catchments, are not at the planning table. Some mechanism will need to be found to engage effectively with He Toa Takitini, the large natural group representative of Heretaunga and Tamatea hapu interests. It would seem strange having decisions affecting these rivers being made without their input to the process.

Management of natural resources is vested in regional councils, whose duties are to take into account the interests of all, while giving Mãori values an adequate degree of priority. Past practices at our Regional Council have seen Mãori interests in water relegated in favour of economic development opportunities. Over the last decade water has become a contentious issue with a scramble to increase acreage under irrigation due to water’s ability to double or triple the value of a farm or other agricultural enterprise.

Over-allocationWater within the Tukituki system is

over-allocated and this is contributing to stretches of dry riverbed, such as regularly occurs on the Waipawa River upstream of the confluence with the Manga-o-nuku. This section of river is sometimes dry for up to 14 kilometres, breaking the natural connection for fish to utilise the streams and headwaters of the Waipawa River west of Highway 50. It also diminishes public amenity, environmental and cultural values. The Waipawa starts drying up

Continued on Page 30 »

“Habitats have been allowed to decline to a state where the survival of several key species is seriously threatened.”

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Ruataniwha aquifers have declined by around 70 million cubic metres over the last decade.

Water for stock use was previously included in abstraction volumes and subject to resource consents for use in stock water races. These races meandered across the farming landscape and farmers accessed water from them as required. They increased habitat availability for a range of wildlife and fish species, replenished some ground water zones and unused water flowed back into the river. Water from races was also stored in tanks or farm dams for use during drier parts of the year.

Over the last decade, the stock water races have been closed down. This water has been transferred by various councils and the purpose changed from stock use to irrigation. This has had a compounding effect with irrigation and stock water volumes increasing and stock water going from a consented activity to an assumed permitted activity. This puts more demand on our water resources.

Additionally, many orchards and some cropping enterprises are required to gain a resource consent through a publicly notified process for amounts of water ranging from 350 to 1000 cubic metres per week, while dairy farms that use similar amounts for their stock water are not required to have a consent. The cropping activity is assessed as having an effect on our rivers, but not the stock water takes.

In May 2013, 75 consents to take water from the Tukituki expire, and another 33 shortly after. When considering these renewals it will be interesting to see if HBRC takes into account the effects of all groundwater takes from the Ruataniwha Plains on the Waipawa and Tukituki Rivers. There is mounting evidence confirming that the combined ground water takes from the Ruataniwha Plains have a negative impact of more than 1000 litres per second on the lower Tukituki. The NPS for Freshwater envisages setting limits on total abstractions from rivers and for water quality.

The flow setting criteria in background reports for the proposed National Environmental Standard on Ecological Flows and Water Levels (2008) recommended a default minimum flow for rivers of a similar size to the Tukituki, somewhere in the region of 80% of Mean Annual Low Flow (MALF). Using the MALF as a baseline helps average out any extremes over time and this figure is often used as guidance for habitat requirements for aquatic species. If applied to the Tukituki, the minimum flow at Red Bridge would need to increase from the

involve capturing the top 10-15% of flows from heavy rainfall events. The rest of the water would continue to flow naturally down the river channel. This would allow the HBRC Water Company to be in control of determining what the natural flow should be exiting storage, while retaining the rest of the river for on-selling.

I can’t see Mãori backing this option unless we are part of governance and management of the dam, as in the past, commercial activity and profit has always been achieved at cultural and environmental cost. Regulators seem to ignore the Treaty guarantee of the right for Mãori to develop our own resources and the Makaroro dam proposal and its governance structure risks alienating Mãori from participation in management of a natural resource. It also makes a mockery of the new era of co-management.

Once water is taken from the dam, either in a pipe or man-made channel, to all intents and purposes it becomes a commodity and subject to a different legal regime, some of it outside the scope of the RMA, public control or input. The proposal also assumes Mãori don’t have an interest in the higher river flows targeted for filling the dam, nor rights to the riverbed similar to those of the Tuwharetoa Trust Board in relation to their lake and its tributaries.

To date no invitation has been received by tangata whenua to be part of the Water Company, which ought to be a given, with the dam and future water use likely to have some major downstream effects on our taonga.

Of course lake edge property soon becomes prime real estate over time, as happened with Lake Dunstan in Otago after they put in the Clyde dam. If the Makaroro dam goes ahead it will create similar opportunities but also drown significant remnants of indigenous flora. Environmental offsets may be the order of the day as envisaged by the proposed NPS on Indigenous Biodiversity. Riparian planting should be a pre-requisite anyway to help prevent slips and sedimentation.

As capacity of the proposed dam has expanded to 90 million cubic metres,

current 3,500 to 5,300 litres per second.Pro rata reductions of existing consents

would be the logical and common sense approach to expect from our water managers to reduce over-allocation in the Tukituki River and Ruataniwha groundwater zones.

Enter water storageThe goal posts for the water storage

dam in Central Hawke’s Bay keep moving. Initial discussions with Tamatea hapu indicated that there would be flow augmentation during summer low flows, leading to a healthier river and gaining tentative agreement.

This however, has changed with HBRC now stating no flow augmentation and letting the river “potentially” return to

natural flows. The problem with this scenario is that the Ruataniwha aquifers have declined by around 70 million cubic metres over the last decade due to unsustainable ground water pumping, so flow loss will continue to occur through the riverbed gravels until groundwater levels are sufficient to maintain or re-activate the natural spring flows which historically replenished the rivers.

Dam-fill, we’ve been informed, would

» “For much of the summer irrigation season, if any

water is there, it’s only up to your ankles.”

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Ruataniwha aquifers have declined by around 70 million cubic metres over the last decade.

the issue of dam encroachment onto lands subject to Treaty claims has arisen. Leaving the riverbed debate aside for a minute, the northern side of the (potential) lake created by the dam adjoins land blocks that were dubiously acquired by the Crown during New Zealand’s colonial period. Covering them in water rather than using them as part of Treaty reconciliation may not be tenable to Treaty claimants.

Regulating farm run-offAround 60-70% of nutrient in the

Tukituki River is derived from agricultural run-off, from so-called non-point source discharges. Regional councils regulate point source as in what flows from a pipe or drain, but seem reluctant to put the brakes on the main contributors to surface water pollution. Nitrate levels in ground water are also on the rise across the Ruataniwha Plains.

There seems to be an acceptance by some that a right to farm includes a right to pollute through nutrient run-off. The contention promoted by our regulators is based not on how to prevent nutrient loss to rivers or ground water, but on how much should the public be required to put up with from these commercial

activities. Excessive phosphorus and its contribution to the acceleration of aquatic weed growth in the Tukituki is partly attributable to excessive agricultural run-off from fertilised pastures.

There is a move afoot to create markets around water and nutrient trading. Part of this is aligned with a “whole of catchment” approach to water management, which is how catchment boards used to operate before they morphed into regional councils in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, the Ministry for the Environment commissioned Australia’s CSIRO to come up with a report on using market-based instruments for managing water (CSIRO, Jan, 2004). This idea has received more focus over recent times, with calls to increase flexibility around water transfers, with Irrigation New Zealand leading the charge.

Of course trading has occurred in the background for some time anyway, with the RMA actually encouraging it in some circumstances. Also being considered is a management fee or levy whereby regional councils or their successors charge for water by the cubic metre.

Mãori would prefer to be included within these conversations because where an abstraction (or nutrient) permit is

transferred between sub-catchments there is a likely impact on a different hapu group than previous.

But of course, as has been outlined, this is just one of many conversations about the Tukituki catchment that must include appropriate and knowledgeable Mãori. Sensible, sustainable Tukituki management solutions must be arrived at and implemented. Continuing down the failed path of economic advancement at the cost of our iconic river is no longer acceptable.

OUR RIVERS ARE UNDER THREAT

Plans are afoot to dam a major tributary of the Tukituki River so some landowners downstream can irrigate an extra 25,000ha+ resulting in intensified farming operations.

If you love the Hawke’s Bay region’s rivers, you should be concernedIncreased livestock numbers and intensified land use will mean increased runoff of nutrients and animal waste, contributing more pollution to a river that is already under stress. This could mean no or limited; swimming, fishing and food gathering opportunities!

Do you want that!? We definitely do not!

Fish & Game is concerned that limited provisions have been made to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of this irrigation scheme, such as limiting nutrient inputs from livestock and fertilisers to environmentally sustainable levels, and mandatory riparian

management to fence animals out of waterways and to create buffer zones that can absorb some of the agricultural run-off.

Unless major issues are addressed in the catchment, we seriously run the risk of losing this nationally significant river. Help us protect our rivers by making a submission today on the HBRC Long Term Plan.

Closing date for submissions is May 16th.

FISH & GAME NZ – ANGLERS AND HUNTERS FOR CONSERVATION

20+ YEARS FROM NOW?BE PART OF THE SOLUTION NOT THE PROBLEM!

WHAT IT’S LIKE DOWNSTREAM AT PRESENT – ALGAE AND SEDIMENT!

HOW THE TUKI STARTS –CLEAN AND PURE!

?

General Status of Tukituki Catchment

1 What is HBRC’s position on the current – or benchmark – environmental health of the Tukituki? Do environmentalists or other government assessments agree with that assessment?

2 What standards, indicators or measures will HBRC use to establish the environmental health of the Tukituki? Do these include measures of macroinvertebrate health in the river?

3 Do environmentalists agree that proposed water quality and minimum flow standards are sufficiently stringent to protect river health?

4 Does HBRC commit to enhancing water quality in the catchment as a result of implementing the proposed scheme? What pollution reduction targets will be used and enforced to achieve such improvement?

5 How frequently and in which locations will water quality be measured?

6 To what extent will recreational activities be enhanced in the catchment as a result of water storage?

Environmental impact of dam/reservoir

7 What landscape enhancements will be implemented by HBRC with respect to the reservoir?

8 Are there any adverse effects on aquatic species above the dam?

9 Will the dam be operated so as to guarantee that minimum flow requirements are met throughout the catchment?

10 What alternative land use and water management options, instead of building a dam, have been examined to achieve water quality and security goals? Why were these alternatives set aside?

Environmental impact of farming

11 Given that current environmental problems with the Tuki stem in large part from farm run-off associated with current levels and types of farming in the catchment, how can substantially more – and more intensive – farming be added to the catchment without causing even more deterioration?

12 If an aggregate permitted nutrient load is set for all users of the scheme, how will individual farm nutrient discharge (based on what and how they farm) be allocated within that total catchment load?

13 What discharge mitigation measures is HBRC prepared to require of farmers in the catchment to improve water quality? What legal instrument will require such measures?

14 How will implementation of these measures by individual farmers be monitored? What penalties will apply if farmers fail to meet discharge limits?

15 What information is available regarding farmers’ current use of such measures and best practices? In other words, what improvement potential exists, assuming such practices are not now uniformly used?

16 Will mitigation measures apply only to farmers taking water via the water storage scheme, or to all farmers in the Tukituki catchment?

17 If intensified farming nevertheless leads to deterioration of water quality, what provision is made for more rigorous protections to be implemented?

Environmental impact of point discharges from Waipawa/Waipukurau

18 Will new, higher water quality standards be met in 2014, as already required by the Environment Court?

19 Does HBRC concur that thestandards required to be met in 2014 are appropriate?

20 What treatment scheme is CHB adopting to meet those standards?

Project cost

21 What is the full cost of the water storage infrastructure – i.e. the dam and delivery system to the farm gate?

23 What is the cost of the infrastructure to the farm gate for individual farmers? On what basis will this cost be allocated to individual farmers?

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50WATER STORAGEQUESTIONS

As with any ‘once in a lifetime’ purchase,the best advice to follow is: BUYER BEWARE!

Feature

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23 What is the estimated on-farm cost to farmers for new irrigation distribution on their farms?

24 What is the estimated cost to farmers for annual operating expenses of the scheme?

25 What is the estimated cost tofarmers for environmental mitigation measures?

Economic benefits

26 How many farmers could potentially participate in the scheme?

27 What is the projected farmer uptake for the scheme over the first five years of operation?

28 Can farmers trade their water allocations?

29 What assumptions are made about increased capital value of land irrigated by the scheme?

30 What assumptions are madeabout increased farm output (i.e., what is produced and how much?) and its market value for users of the scheme? What is the reliability of these assumptions given individual farmer’s control their own land use?

31 What economic benefits have been projected for downstream farmers who arguably will benefit from greater security of water supply?

32 What flow-on region-wide economic benefits have been projected from increased farm output? What uncertainties are involved in these projections?

Financing scenarios

33 What share of total scheme capital costs will be met by user-owner-farmers?

34 Will any provision be made forfarmer support in meeting these costs (e.g., deferred payments, below-market financing)?

35 Will HBRC (i.e., the general ratepayer) pay any part of capital or operating costs for the storage scheme?

36 What other ownership/investor participants are projected, by type – central government, iwi, supply chain investors, other commercial investors?

37 Given the range of potential financial participants, what is the projected ownership pie – which owners own how much of the scheme?

38 What is assumed cost of that funding (expected ROI or interest rates)?

39 How can owners sell their water rights or otherwise exit the scheme?

40 Are overseas investors expected to participate as owners/lenders?

41 Are any special review or consent requirements in place regarding potential foreign ownership of water infrastructure or water rights?

42 What are the investment objectives of various parties?

43 What ‘public good’ value has been assigned to the scheme and what is its justification?

44 To the extent borrowing by HBRC or any HBRC-controlled unit is involved, will it be within established HBRC borrowing parameters?

45 How is risk distributed? Specifically, what financial exposure is carried by the HBRC (i.e., ratepayers) on this project? Is this an appropriate level in the context of HBRC’s overall investment portfolio?

46 Is water effectively given a commodity price by this scheme?

Governance Questions

47 What is the overall structureand mechanism to ensure public accountability for the business, environmental and other public good objectives of the storage scheme?

48 What Mãori involvement isanticipated in any part of this governance structure?

49 What are the business objectives of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company in relation to the water storage scheme?

50 When and how will ratepayers have their say on whether this project should proceed?

‘Stakeholder’ consultations aren’t sufficient; the public must have its say.

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The diametre of the Earth is 12,700 kms. Most of the atmosphere is within 16 kms of the surface, but we can only survive in a tiny, precarious skin of about 2-3 kms wedged between a ball of mostly molten rock and the unbounded emptiness of space.

If that is not scary enough when seen in such a perspective, consider this: humans are utterly dependent on the minuscule 50-250 mm layer of topsoil that covers the tiny 11% of the Earth’s surface that is used for all agriculture (or 3% for crops). If there was just rock and sand here, only a few hardy life forms like bacteria and algae would survive. That requires a pause for serious reflection . . .

Topsoil is a remarkably complex living organism, made up from a mix of nutrients, organic matter, fungi, bacteria, insects and worms. Its riches have evolved over millennia, and have nurtured the abundant growths upon which we and all living things thrive. It has been a vital and fundamental part of this ecosystem for as long as there has been life on Earth. Hopefully it will continue to do so, but once eroded or poisoned it will take thousands of years to rejuvenate itself.

As I have tried to stress in all my writing for BayBuzz, we are at a unique point in

the history of the human race, where we have reached the limits of the planet. What this means is that everything that has gone before no longer applies – everything must be rethought and redesigned for a new and quite different future. It does not imply a retrospective criticism of past attitudes, but it does require some pretty serious paradigm shifts in the way in which we think, we do business, and in particular the way in which we relate to Nature. The Earth is not a limitless source of produce, nor is its capacity to absorb waste limitless.

So who owns topsoil? Or maybe the question is really should anyone own it? Traditionally it has been landowners and farmers. Enlightened ones will say that they are not ‘owners’ but custodians during their brief time. They will endeavour to pass on the land in as good, or better, condition as it was when they received it. However the definition of ‘good condition’ is changing and will vary with perspective: does it mean maximum cleared land for maximum output, or does it mean a balanced ecosystem where wetlands and woodlands nurture its health?

Other farmers treat it as their own business to run as they see fit for their own benefit, and resent the intrusion of outsiders who know little about farming.

Who owns the soil?by ~ DAVID TRUBRIDGE

“Should farming be seen as just another business,

where farmers are allowed to make as much profit

as they can from the land, whatever they do to it?”

david trubridge

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

Ideas & Opinions

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Humans are utterly dependent on a minuscule 50-250mm layer of topsoil.

I think it is time that we had a serious debate about this. Should farming be seen as just another business, where farmers are allowed to make as much profit as they can from the land, whatever they do to it? Or should we all have some say in how the land is used, because we, and our descendants, all utterly depend on it?

A farmer recently said to me, “How dare you criticise us – we are feeding the world!” I replied that the end is laudable but does not justify the means – it is how you are doing it that concerns me. How long can you continue to farm like this, when you are so dependent on oil and imported fertilisers, and on drugs and antibiotics for your animals?

New Zealand was founded on colonial and settler principles. Throughout most of its existence it has been a rural economy with its wealth lying in the land. Its social contract separated city and country, leaving the rural sector to look after the land while the city ran the commerce. The laws and values of the new country reflected this attitude towards the land which was a resource to be exploited: forests were clear-felled without replanting; wetlands were drained to create more farm-land. In the 19th century, when nature seemed so boundless, there were few immediate negative consequences, but then later in the 20th century we came up against the finite limits of the planet, and of our own land.

Urban folk have a sayA new urban-based, environmental

awareness has grown, one that places the burden of responsibility on us to look after that which gives us life. Those living in the cities now realise that they are utterly dependent on the country for their food, water, clean air, and even waste disposal. And not just for them, but also for their children and grandchildren. Does that not mean that they should have some say in how the rural sector run their sphere?

Traditionally farmers shared this concern for the future. They wanted to hand a going concern on to their descendants. Many still do, but the pressures on them are immense and they need to earn a living like the rest of us. The average age of a farmer is 65, which means that there are not enough young farmers. So if they can’t hand it on, why bother planning long-term when they can make more money in the short-term?

If they have no family to inherit it they will sell it, probably to an agri-business, and quite likely to an overseas one. Such businesses are driven only by short-term

profit – they are solely accountable to their shareholders, if not every quarter, at least every year. The intrinsic nature of such unmitigated business is that it cares nothing for a long-term future if it adversely affects the short-term, and their critical quarterly KPIs. They will do all they can to maximise their output from multiple crops by pumping in fertiliser, sucking waterways almost dry and polluting what is left of them, as dry topsoil blows away in spring ploughing.

However distasteful that may seem, we can’t condemn the CEOs for working within the system. But we can demand that the social contract is revised and that government redresses the balance by representing us and the future, not the short-term commercial interests of big business as it currently does by chasing after its myopic holy grail of economic growth at all costs.

In Biomimicry Janine Benyus describes how the level of the north American prairies has fallen by up to three feet due to the erosion of topsoil. The land used to be covered by a dense mat of indigenous grass roots which protected it from the extreme weather and retained water, but after its destruction from ploughing, more delicate cropping plants could not perform the same function. Some areas became the infamous dust bowls. Others still cling on, but for every bag of wheat grown in Iowa six bags of topsoil are lost to the sea. Ecologist John Piper says that the Prairies have lost one third of topsoil and 50% of fertility in just 100 years. There is no future in that. It is an extreme that hopefully does not exist here, where we do not (yet) have the same vast agri-businesses. But it is a warning.

Topsoil and water are precious, life-giving resources. The future of everyone depends on their ongoing health, therefore I argue that everyone should have some say in how they are used. If they are wasted for the short-term gain of a few, then I think that it is my duty to try and protect them for the health of my descendants and for everyone not yet born. If that means my meddling in the traditional fiefdom of landowners, then so be it. With the increasing presence of (international) agri-business in our country this becomes even more urgent.

I think it is time that we had a more open and considered debate about this issue. I am not one who can provide answers here nor should any one person. What is important is that we recognise that this is an issue and open our minds to possible solutions. Do we need more legislation? Should governments play a more active role to represent communities and the future, mitigating the purely selfish profit drive of business, and even that of individuals in the community? Should the whole community contribute in the form of subsidies which will in effect buy the future.

The environment and the future are inextricably linked; our future lies in our care for the environment now. We need brave leadership which is prepared to stand up and represent the future – all our descendants and other life – here and now. It will cost. It is not in the short-term interests of selfish people or businesses, but if there is no leadership now I don’t see a happy future.

We are all in this together, and all of us depend on topsoil.

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

Despite Nick Smith’s resignation from Cabinet, there is a continuing momentum abroad in New Zealand for freshwater management solutions on a level not seen for some decades -- and using methods of engagement and governance rarely chanced here before.

The reasons for this are many and various. Guy Salmon’s long game to achieve environmental protection by conciliation rather than the usual aggressive recourse to money and lawyers has been important. Smith’s Land and Water Forum is testament alone to that.

Among many others, is the realisation that the Resource Management Act (RMA) -- now 20 years old – is just one tool in the box.

Connected to this thinking is the carrot -- of Government‘s Irrigation Acceleration Fund, that may stimulate regional development. This Government also has a stick – its rough-house takeover of the Canterbury Regional Council for allegedly not getting its water management plan in order stands as an unpleasant warning to other councils. Yet the possibility of government support lit

up this month’s Irrigation Conference with a kind of optimism more often seen on the other side of the Tasman.

Leading the charge with its initiatives is the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC). Known for its sunshine, abundant produce, family-friendly lifestyle and its rivers and river plains, Hawke’s Bay is also water-hungry on those plains in summer, more especially as climate change kicks in – but water-rich in its Ruahine hinterland. This has gotten HBRC thinking about irrigation on a scale much larger and perhaps more holistically. Its thinking also involves so many aspects of hydrology, ecology, commerce and culture, HBRC realised that it needed to embark upon a strategy underpinned by a democratic process of engagement with community and stakeholders of a kind rarely undertaken – certainly on this scale -- in New Zealand before.

The aim was to provide for an integration of conservation and development to achieve the much-touted, but rarely satisfied over-arching principle of the RMA -- sustainable management. But to work towards this in ways that achieved comprehensive community goals: social, economic and environmental, that the RMA processes often fall short of.

To get there, however, fundamental changes of everything, from the models of governance to water usage arrangements, were required. Fenton Wilson, the thinking man’s farmer and chair of HBRC, describes the approach adopted, referred to as ‘collaborative governance’. “If you’re sitting at a table with all parties,” he says, “and you’re putting it freely and frankly, then you can go to a hearing where everyone is much

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Growthand

prosperityBy David Young

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council wants the region to grow and prosper, while its clean natural environment is protected. To achieve this it needs to take some bold steps as well as taking an integrated approach to everything it does within the region.

From its extensive investigations into a proposed water storage project on the Ruataniwha Plains, to the careful structuring of HBRC’s investment portfolio, including the establishment of the Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company, through which future investments in water infrastructure may be made, it is aware of the effect each of its decisions has on the overall vision of the organisation.

This integrated approach is no more evident than in the work underway to address water sustainability and allocation issues in the Tukituki catchment.

To bring this river back to good health and avoid negative economic

impacts on the local community water needs to be found. HBRC is undertaking a robust investigation into potential water storage in the Ruataniwha Plains that would provide water security to irrigators, improve the water flows and quality in the Tukituki River and open up more productive land in turn providing increased economic development for the region.

It’s this smart alignment of a range of work streams coupled with strong leadership and vision which will help HBRC achieve its strategic goals for the Tukituki catchment and the region as a whole.

HBRC commissioned environmental historian David Young to take an independent look at its strategic approach to land and water, focusing on the Tukituki River water storage and irrigation plans – a scheme to enhance the flows and water quality of the river system. He interviewed some 15 participants -- this is his report.

Commentary provided by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, 159 Dalton Street, Napier, Phone 06 835 9200

• TheGovernment’slong-awaitednationalpolicystatementforfreshwaterannouncedin2011directsregionalcouncilstosetallocationlimitsandwaterqualitytargets

• The2011Budgetallocated$35millionoverfiveyearsfortheIrrigationAccelerationFundtosupportthedevelopmentofirrigationinfrastructureproposals

• Bigfoodprocessingcorporations,notablySilverFernFarms,Heinz-WattieandFonterra,arecurrentlylookingtoexpandtheiroperationsinHawke’sBay.McCainshasrecentlyinvestedin$19mofnewplant,whichotherwisewouldhavegonetoTasmania.

• Nowinpost-Treatysettlementmode,tangatawhenua,traditionallyholisticthinkers,arepotentialschemeinvestors,workersandbeneficiaries,whoarealsoempoweredtoplaytheirpartindecision-makingthattheyhopewillbecomeenvironmentallyrestorativeaswellaseconomicallyconstructive.

As part of their wider thinking, the HBRC came up with the idea of capitalising on the rain-rich Ruahines, to the west, in order to stimulate the water-short, productive potential of the Ruataniwha Plains (see box).

Optimistic as it sounds, HBRC is minded to take its strategic and holistic thinking to its community, to work inclusively with them in ways that challenge old modes of thinking and doing – in a pretty tight time frame – on the scheme.

To achieve ‘a mosaic’ on the plains, and not the bogey of a dairying monoculture, the processes must be inclusive of the diversity intended in the outcomes. But concerns expressed about the scheme are that only the prices dairying can bring can afford the charges that those investing in the scheme will need for a return. Peter McIntosh, ex-regional council, with experience in business overseas, is now Hawke’s Bay Regional Manager for Fish and Game New Zealand. While the organisation advocates trout fishing, it abets the native fishery to the extent that it also promotes water quality that native insects and increasingly rare fish (long-fin eel, inanga and dwarf galaxiids) also depend upon.

Peter McIntosh is concerned that the hard economic data has yet to emerge, making project evaluation difficult -- noting that HBRC’s 30% augmentation figure in early April has suddenly became

better off. In the end, it’s less cumbersome and less expensive.”

Instead of the sometimes cumbersome and often combative processes of the Resource Management Act, “We’re doing our darnedest to ensure people are included at every step of the way and we’re using a new process,” he says. “It’s about recognising other views -- you may not agree, but they may either reinforce your views or bring you to a place that suits both parties.”

“The challenge we’ve got as a society in New Zealand is managing the desire for economic improvement, in a way that doesn’t negatively impact on our environment and the values that we hold dear in society.” The possibility of irrigating more land needed to be explored, but without impacting those who value a river’s aesthetic, recreational, or what he calls an ‘heirloom value’.

Allocation limits set in place in the regional plan that became operative in 2006 have been exceeded in a number of catchment by consents that existed at the time. So HBRC has committed to reviewing minimum flows in the planning documents. This is likely to reduce water security, particularly for users who take water directly from the river or a groundwater layer that is linked to it by complex systems.

Water quality issues are high on the community’s agenda. Periphyton growths in the lower Tukituki are objectionable to locals and other river users. This is aggravated by minimum flow levels set at Red Bridge which are probably too low. Point source discharges from the up-river towns of Waipawa and Waipukurau are significant contributors to periphyton and the planned upgrades have deadlines that are fast approaching. Nutrient-rich grower and dairy farmer generated runoffs are also contributing to the current state of water quality.

In order to put more water into irrigation on the Ruataniwha Plains and improve water quality, the HBRC began to do pre-feasibility investigations on possible dam sites in the Upper Tukituki River around the same time it began to engage in a detailed stakeholder discussion. A number of further recent developments, national, regional and local, helped further sharpen everyone’s thinking:

Advertorial

We are communicating information as it evolves.

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“Most irrigators could do with more water.”ruataniwha farmer richard dakin With a single 75 metre dam in the

Ruahine foothills on the Makaroro tributary of the Waipawa, a 7.5 km lake holding 90 million cubic metres of water would be formed, west of the Ruataniwha Plains, providing a reliable water supply to irrigate up to 20,000 to 30,000 hectares depending on land use. Currently the Ruataniwha is a “mosaic” of stock-finishing country and arable farming, producing prime lamb and beef, peas, pumpkins, asparagus, potatoes. Irrigation, it is suggested, will significantly boost tonnages, also benefitting the Port of Napier, 100% owned by HBRC. This is rare country.

Several independent economic research projects on this have been undertaken and are due to be refined in detail by the end of June and yet to be made publicly available. HBRC economic advisors, Michael Bassett-Foss and Grant Pechey, indicate that these initial studies estimate the on-farm return on marginal capital associated with the new scheme to be approximately 11%. The combined effect of both on and off-farm investment of upwards of $600m leads to an increase in total regional GDP of approximately $320m and an additional 4500 job years of work. These estimated economic impacts will be focused around the early years of the scheme when dam construction and most on-farm investment is expected to take place.

In addition, the scheme is estimated to increase farm gate output by $180m/year. This will be accompanied by an increase in direct value added on-farm of $100m/year. Multiplier effects increase the total regional GDP by approximately $220m/year. It is estimated that increased production and processing activity will generate more than 1500 jobs in the region.

Seepage39forthefullmap.

Ruataniwha Water Storage Project

www.hbrc.govt.nz

Continued on Page 38 »

Advertorial

See improved flows in the Tukituki as a result of this scheme.

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spread systematically on paddocks.HBRC Chief Executive, Andrew

Newman acknowledges concerns that the council cannot direct land use change, and concerns that the only use that would be able to afford storage would be dairying. “If the pricing mechanism to gain access to the stored water is based on volume, as opposed to an upfront capital cost per hectare, then the cost of entry will better reflect the respective land uses’ water requirements and enable and retain that diversity of land uses on the plains,” he says.

With an increased mosaic of irrigated

‘20 to 30%’. He speaks for those worried about compressed timeframes – with what he sees thus far as, perhaps inevitable, opacity in reporting detail and lack of peer review. “Our stakeholder group has seen nothing of detail yet.”

HBRC Chief Executive Andrew Newman says the communication challenge has been to involve key parties through the journey from its inception. “That means they have influence on what we examine as well as being party to results which are flowing in now. We are communicating information as it evolves so there’s inevitably a degree of ambiguity and uncertainty particularly through the early stages.”

Peter McIntosh lives beside and loves the Tukituki and knows it well. “We have to see improved flows in the Tukituki as a result of this scheme. But it’s the land use intensification that concerns me.” He wants to believe it would work, but worries that the age of farmers in the CHB is more likely to produce sellers than stayers in the scheme, which may be problematical.

Farm management plans and nutrient budgets need to be enforceable, accompanied by on-farm wetland enhancement to help filter out sediment and pollutants, says Peter. All are identified in the strategic plan. With fifth-generation farmer, Andrew Watts, Peter wants ‘adequate riparian fencing’. Watts, a stakeholder group member with no pecuniary interest in the project, only in “the good health of Hawke’s Bay”, advocates for native birds, fish and trees. He wants 20m riparian native strips on either side of major water courses to improve water and visual quality. A spray irrigation pioneer from the 1970s his intensive green dairying involved collecting farm effluent in tanks to later

and unirrigated land within integrated farming enterprises comes the concern of the impacts on water quality. Upcoming changes to the regional plan will see water quality limits being set for the first time in the Tukituki River Catchment. These will translate into a quantum of nutrient (nitrogen) that can be lost below the soil zone. This will require farmers to be much more aware of what they are currently leaching to groundwater and what they need to do to minimise those losses. While this will apply across the catchment, Andrew says the irrigation scheme would provide a mechanism through any contractual conditions to ensure that nutrient losses are within acceptable levels.

Richard Dakin stakeholder, water right consent holder for arable farming on the Ruataniwha, is positive: “Provided all the economics stacks up. But it will all come out in the wash in the next few months. And augmenting the river flows will be good where the river is coming under restraint.” The dam’s ability to provide a potential five-fold increase in irrigated land is “a prudent thing to do if we want to expand agriculture.” Surety of supply would encourage investment, enabling expansion, “Most irrigators could do with more water.”

His concern, too, is that the only dairying may be able to afford the water,

»

HBRC’s strategy for the Tukituki Prepared by HBRC

This aligns with HBRC’s Strategic Plan and Draft Long Term Plan and is underpinned by the Hawke’s Bay Land and Water Management Strategy (www.hbrc.govt.nz)

Resilient Ecosystems Resilient Economy Resilient Communities

We want:

• Improvedsummerflows• Improvedwaterquality• Improvedaquaticand

riparianhabitats

We want:

• Improvedwatersecurity• Increasebusinesscertainty• Increasedinwards

investment• Sustainableeconomic

growth

We want:

• Improvedamenity• Restoredmauri• Improvedsocial

wellbeing

How do we get there:

• Harvestwinterflowsforsummeruseasalternativetosurfaceandgroundwatertakes

• Reviewminimumflowandallocationlimits

• Setwaterqualitylimits• SupportCHBDCtomeet

wastewaterupgraderequirementsinthecurrentconsentthroughappropriatetreatmenttechnology

• Landandriparianmanagement(WaterandNutrient)

How do we get there:

• StoragebasedCommunityirrigationscheme

• Planprovidesallocationframework(waterquantityandquality)

How do we get there:

• Flowoneffectsfrombusinesscertaintyandsecurity

• Flowoneffectsfromallocationframework

Free flowing Makaroro

Dam-created reservoir

MAKARORO RD

GLENNY RD

NORRIS RD

WAKARARA RD

WAKARARA RD

MOORE RD

ANDERSON RD

Dam Forest

800m above sea level

600m above sea level

500m above sea level

Dam

Road

Tikokino 17km

See improved flows in the Tukituki as a result of this scheme.

thereby changing the cropping of the plains to something that might threaten that mixed cropping mosaic that has long characterised Hawke’s Bay: “I won’t be doing dairy farming,” Richard insists.

Mãori leadership engaged in the discussion has a considered, but reasonably relaxed attitude to the dam from the perspective of the rivers’ mauri (life force), already compromised by flood works and irrigation. Mike Mohi, 50 years a Porangahau sheep farmer and member of Tamatea Tai Whenua, on the stakeholder committee, holds some concerns, however: “From a Mãori point of view I’m apprehensive as to the facts of another 20,000 ha of irrigated land as regards to run-off. We’ve been assured that the mitigation measures will be put in place.” His analysis is that while the new irrigation may not attract many more dairy farms, there may be many more dairy cows. That is, more local forage cropping for local dairy – without the usual haulage rates – possibly adding a double whammy, with more arable plus more dairying discharges. But he and Dr Roger Maaka, a member of the Ruataniwha Leadership Group, are keen that promised fish passes for native species, long-fin eel and kokopu, succeed on the dam. Both can see how the wealth the dam could bring would keep roads upgraded and schools and hospitals fully operational.

“Post-dam activities are of great interest to us,” Roger says, “because if extra water is simply a means to more horticultural activities that were detrimental to the river, then I wouldn’t be interested.” If the scheme can attract the large number of unemployed young Mãori to stay and work in the region, then the stability and wealth it creates will, with sound environmental outcomes, be everything, “We need employment for young families – I guess I’m not interested if it means rich people getting richer -- if local people don’t gain anything from it, then it’s a futile exercise.” Mãori as investors need to see the dam as “a good place for us to put our capital – it goes along with everything we stand for,” Roger says.

Flows imitating natural flushing are also planned, although modelling in the complex gravels is a difficult science. Augmented off-set planting for what forest will be lost in the flooding is also planned and factored in to a wider regional approach to different agencies sharing management of the hinterland.

Nothing like this dam has been built since the Ministry of Works (MWD) in the late 1980s. Successful Opuha, South

Canterbury, was a locally-driven dam-for-irrigation scheme of the late 1990s. With its serious teething problems long overcome, it is the nearest approximation to this scheme, but considerably smaller in extent.

Yet how history moves in cycles. The defunct catchment boards, the regional councils’ precursors in water management, ran water and soil regional management for nearly 50 years. Now, in a funny way, while language changes and concepts are inevitably refined, the late efforts of catchment boards towards “integrated management” of catchments are more than alive in this regional management strategy. But now tangata whenua have achieved long awaited co-governance, some science has progressed “way further” and New Zealanders who thought there would always be ample water for our use are beginning to understand that waste, be it of superphosphate, of growing soils and

– most dramatically – of water itself, is a crime against ourselves as well as nature.

As long as HBRC continues to uphold the innovative and inclusive processes that have been set up to achieve its strategies, there is every reason to believe that the goals of sustainability – that benefit the widest community, the ecological and the environmental as well as the economy – can be achieved in this ambitious project. Implementation will be tough in the circumstances. The trick is then to stay true to their original principles while developing adaptive governance for resilience in a changing world.

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www.hbrc.govt.nz

Two decades ago a black teenager in London was murdered by a group of white kids. The police investigation was so poorly handled that a Royal Commission investigation led by Sir William Macpherson concluded that the Metropolitan Police was “institutionally racist”.

The fallout from the Stephen Lawrence murder and its investigation sent a shockwave of response through the Metropolitan Police Service. Issues in the Met had bubbled for decades, then a sudden impact forced change and the Service undertook a determined

and systematic process of compulsory professional development for all 50,000 staff, unpicking inbuilt prejudices and deep-set perceptions of society and culture. It took acknowledgment of the problem, identification of the remedy, and a lot of in-your-face confrontational home-truths. It was a mammoth undertaking, but not an impossible one.

Institutional racism is “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin”.

Anecdotally, statistically, and in massively general terms, our Mãori students are failing in our education system, or, reframed, the system is failing Mãori students. Which is it?

At the University of Waikato, Professor Russell Bishop (Tainui/NgatiAwa) is deconstructing underlying prejudice in education. His ten-year old Te Kotahitanga programme is viewed by many as a shining light in New Zealand’s education system. It is certainly creating a metamorphosis in teaching practices, witnessing huge successes in Mãori students and turning traditional classroom constructs on their heads.

Four Hawke’s Bay secondary schools have adopted Te Kotahitanga as an integral part of their professional development programme: Napier Boys’ High School, William Colenso College, Flaxmere College and Hastings Boys’ High School.

Te Kotahitanga asks teachers, and

students, to rethink negative stereotyping of Mãori as learners, or more particularly as non-learners, who achieve less than their classmates. It challenges participants to put aside deficit thinking and become conscious enablers of success.

The expectation is that students who experience a more culturally responsive educational environment will be confident to continue with their learning, through to Year 13 and beyond.

Making culture countThe single, unifying principle is that

teachers must do away with any negative theorising about a preordained lack of achievement from Mãori students, and instead adopt a position as an agent of success where they believe whole-heartedly in their students’ ability to achieve.

Te Kotahitanga positions the teacher – personally – as an agent of change rather than simply a facilitator of the status quo, and the students as active participants, even co-leaders in their own goal setting and accomplishment.

“Research started with talking to students, listening to them, developing an effective teaching profile. If you can get teachers to be culturally responsive, that makes a significant difference for Mãori students, and for all students,” says Principal of William Colenso College, Daniel Murfitt.

How that plays out in the classroom depends somewhat on the teacher and their students. Group work, roleplay and student-led discussions all feature.

Sponsoring insight into the future of education in Hawke’s Bay.

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Mãori students are failing in our education system. Or reframed, the system is failing Mãori students. Which is it? A new approach in Hawke’s Bay suggests an answer.

JESSICA SOUTAR BARRON

Removing

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around the photocopier. We’ve now got a much richer discussion with our staff, thanks in part to this programme,” says Ross Brown.

Making changeA defining element of the programme

is ‘co-construction sessions’, where teachers look at individual challenges, both their own and their students, and methods for steering a way through; what has worked, what has not; the issues and the wins.

Daniel Murfitt describes the importance of co-construction meetings as a place where teachers can openly discuss challenges and potential strategies to overcome them.

“This programme has helped us develop learning communities within our school, to help teachers help each other. It’s opened up doors,” he says.

A key focus is on building effective relationships between teachers and students, and peer-to-peer with teachers supporting each other to adjust and improve their teaching practice.

Te Kotahitanga can be confronting, but even staff who are initially negative towards the ambitions of the programme are impacted by it.

Ross Brown, who himself has been through the training, understands how it can, at first, be challenging for some teachers.

“It is intense, but generally staff are very positive. Their opinion is that we’ve got to do something. One of the early steps is asking ourselves ‘Have we been teaching in a way that works for our students?’ Our teachers have been challenged to look at the way they teach, and maybe consider new ways and approaches. We’ve found it to be useful, productive, positive, rich.”

Traditional vs TribalDaniel Murfitt believes a real

issue with our education system is that it is fundamentally Euro-centric, or Anglo Saxon.

“Our education system is very Anglo Saxon, and the people who have driven change in the past, who have made a difference, have been Anglo Saxon.” Murfitt describes two differing approaches to teaching: one traditional and one referred to as ‘tribal’.

The first places the ‘What’ at the forefront of learning – ‘What am I learning’ – and then ‘Why’.

The second places the ‘Who’ at the beginning – meaning personal connection is the most important factor in the learning equation.

Classrooms become places where power is shared in a non-dominating way, where culture counts, and where success is helped along because of the cultural background of the student, not in spite of it.

The first step is for teachers to leave prejudice at the door.

“Removal of the deficit thinking that goes on, that’s quite a challenge. Society and certain people have ingrained deficit thinking. If you’ve still got that kind of thinking, you can’t make change,” says Murfitt.

Deficit thinking can get in to the heads of not only teachers but students as well. The methods introduced through Te Kotahitanga see students becoming more engaged, and more enthusiastic about their own success and learning.

The programme has defined layers of professional development. Te Kotahitanga facilitators, working within the school, observe and analyse the methods each teacher uses in the classroom, then feed back to the teacher on potential improvements to their practice. Together, they then set goals and a path for achieving them.

All this means students are receiving an enriched, student-centric experience of school that celebrates their cultural differences, pushes them past what is the accepted norm, even past their own internalised racism, where they may see themselves as a failure even very early on in their education journey.

“It’s about understanding individual need better; adjusting things, even slightly; and having aspirational conversations with students,” believes Ross Brown, Principal at Napier Boys’ High School where 300, of a roll of 1200, identify as Mãori.

There are 75 staff at Napier Boys’, and all of them have been through the training, but in stages, so some are nearing completion while others have just begun. It is a resource-hungry programme; the school has four Te Kotahitanga facilitators.

“I can see the good in it. The good is in the quality and nature of professional discussions. Formally; but also informally,

Deficit thinking can get into the heads of not only teachers but students as well.

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“If you can get teachers to be culturally responsive, that makes a significant difference for Mãori students.” daniel murfitt, principal, william colenso college

Breaking the stereotype

Bethany Millar and Regina Thomson have been firm friends and school mates since Year 9.

Now in Year 13, Regina is Head Girl and Bethany is Deputy Head Girl at William Colenso College in Napier. As one of four schools in Hawke’s Bay engaged in the Te Kotahitanga programme, Colenso has reframed the traditional learning environment and structures. From the student point of view there are certainly benefits.

“My teachers put a lot of effort in to helping us and I want to put effort in for them. You can’t ignore that,” explains Regina. “When you achieve things you feel good about it and you can use that feeling for the future – to help you do more.”

Regina balances her school work load with a part-time job, netball, basketball, kapahaka and dance, as well as her many commitments as the head of Colenso’s student leadership team.

“My Mum and Dad cried when I was made Head Girl. They were really happy and very proud of me. You see that you’ve made your family proud, and that helps too, it makes you want to achieve more.”

Bethany is also active outside of school. She is a member of her local Salvation Army Youth Group and plays hockey for Colenso.

“Our teachers take time to help

Continued on Page 43 »

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If they hear us saying negative things about ourselves, they say, ‘I believe in you’.

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All four Hawke’s Bay schools were in Phase 5 of the programme roll out, three years ago, there are now over fifty schools signed up. Daniel Murfitt believes that if Te Kotahitanga can survive through to Phases 6 and 7 (there are no Te Kotahitanga schools in Taranaki or anywhere in the South Island) then a ‘tipping point’ might be reached and the programme will trigger a wave of change through the whole New Zealand education system.

“I strongly believe it’s something the Government should continue to fund because it can make substantial change to New Zealand society. If we’re lifting Mãori kids then we’re lifting everyone,” says Murfitt.

“At Colenso, there’s been a 100% increase in the number of Year 12 Mãori students achieving NCEA Level 2 between 2009 (pre-Te Kotahitanga) and 2011. A number of factors and strategies have been implemented that have led to this increase, but Te Kotahitanga has been the overarching umbrella that has enabled all these parts to take effect, and also to be sustained.”

The introduction of the programme through its first five phases has been successful thanks to sufficient funding, thorough on-going research over many years led by Dr Russell Bishop and his team, and proactive leadership on the ground in participating schools. The challenge is sustainability, especially when central government holds the purse strings.

“For us funding will drop off over the next two years. So over the next 18 months the Board of Trustees will be making decisions on ‘Where to from here?’”, explains Ross Brown, adding: “We’ve got to keep it moving to bring about change.”

In many ways this is the crux of Te Kotahitanga. A tribal approach is focused on connections, then purpose and methodology, and finally knowledge, whereas the traditional Anglo Saxon approach values What, Why and How, and often fails to consider the Who at all.

In a culturally responsive environment, learning is all about the Who, and the relationship that ideas have with the central figure of the student.

Working in Hawke’s Bay?From its oversight position, the Post

Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) was, in its first few years, pessimistic about Te Kotahitanga, feeling the programme was too resource intensive to be sustainable. The programme also relies heavily on strong school leadership and change management skills, two elements sometimes lacking in the very schools that could benefit most from such a programme.

For Ross Brown the benefits are far broader than the original aim. “Te Kotahitanga has its origins in improving Mãori success; the reality is it works for everybody.”

“For our teachers the principles of Te Kotahitanga are in the back of their minds all the time. Even people who are negative about it at first can’t escape the conversation. It means they are adjusting and thinking about the way they’re teaching,” he continues.

Brown does, however, warn that Te Kotahitanga is no silver bullet.

“We don’t win all the battles.” At Napier Boys’ in 2011, 32 of the 154 Year 13 students were Mãori, and of those 32 only one has chosen not to go on to some form of training or employment.

Home truthsTe Kotahitanga is a programme that

requires resourcing, and needs people within the school singularly focused on facilitation and feedback. It may not have the speed or directness of a silver bullet, but outcomes in students show it to be a very positive step forward.

For New Zealand’s education system, locked-in thinking about who will grow up to win, and who to fail is corrosive and detrimental to the success of all our young people. Pinning blame on the system is an easy option, but change happens when dedicated individuals grow brave enough to rethink the accepted norm, and step a little outside their own comfort zone to experience the cultural mindset of someone else.

“For our teachers the principles of Te Kotahitanga

are in the back of their minds all the time.”

ross brown, principal, napier boys’ high

NATIONALLY• 77%ofnon-Mãori17yearoldsare

enrolledinsomeformofeducation

• Thesamecanbesaidforonly60%ofMãori

IN HAWKE’S BAY• 23%ofourpopulationisunderage

15(21.5%nationally)

• 36%ofMãoriareunder15(35.4%nationally)

ACROSS ALL CULTURES• 35.7%oftheHawke’sBaypopulation

aged15andoverhaveapost-schoolqualification(nationallyit’s40%)

• 31%havenoqualificationatall(25%nationally)

FOR MÃORI• 24.3%aged15andoverhaveapost-

schoolqualification(28%nationally)

• 45%havenoqualificationatall(40%nationally)

A SNAPSHOT

(Source: StatsNZ 2006 Census)

»

Principal Daniel Murfitt with student.

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If they hear us saying negative things about ourselves, they say, ‘I believe in you’.

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us,” says Bethany. “That helps us achieve. They talk to us, one on one, and that brings that extra bit out of us. If they have the belief in you then you have that same belief in yourself.”

The Te Kotahitanga programme was designed and implemented in schools specifically to help Mãori students achieve, but it is also showing strong results in students from all cultural backgrounds.

“Teachers putting time into me, makes me want to put more time in too,” says Bethany.

The two girls have quite different but equally commendable career aspirations. Regina plans to join the Navy and train as a Navy medic, she’s drawn to the idea of travelling the world, serving her country. Bethany is investigating a degree in education and would like to be a primary or secondary school teacher. Both girls want to build a career based on helping other people.

At Colenso it appears Regina and Bethany have an equal chance to succeed in life after school. But they have statistics working against them. Amongst many New Zealanders, it is expected that Bethany, of European extraction, will do well, and that Regina, as a Mãori, will not.

Around 65% of non-Mãori girls in Year 13 will gain an NCEA level 3 qualification, or above. For Mãori girls it’s just over 40%, with less than 30% of Mãori boys gaining an NCEA level 3.

Nationally, 77% of non-Mãori 17 year olds are enrolled in some form of education, the same can be said for only 60% of Mãori. In Hawke’s Bay 45% of Mãori students will leave the education system without any form of qualification at all.

Te Kotahitanga has a simple, but not a simplistic goal: to improve the achievements of Mãori students. What participants in the programme are finding – from Te Kotahitanga facilitators, to principals, to the students themselves – is that if the achievement rates of Mãori students can be lifted, then all students in that classroom setting will improve their rates of success.

Teachers matterRegina has had some experience of

school life away from Colenso. She spent her Year 10 in another school but found the teaching styles and structures didn’t work well for her. “I didn’t do so well there, so I came back here, to Colenso. There, I found it was a prejudiced environment. It was strict but I started doing worse not better. I came back and I’ve loved it. It was a good move for me.”

“I know I’m learning heaps from different teachers. It’s a relaxing environment because our teachers aren’t stressed out. We all get along with them really well,” explains Regina. “They push us to achieve, and then when we do they push us to get merit and then excellence, and we do,” Regina adds, referring to the levels of NCEA grading.

“If they hear us saying negative things about ourselves they say, ‘I believe in you’ and that helps us believe in ourselves. They expect a lot from us, and they get it.”

Te Kotahitanga has found a sympathetic environment at William Colenso College. Among the School’s tenets are quality relationships and quality outcomes for all students. There is also a strong emphasis on Mãori students achieving success as Mãori. Much of this resonates with the objectives of Te Kotahitanga.

Principal at William Colenso College, Daniel Murfitt, is a strong advocate for Te Kotahitanga.

Murfitt describes how many people see the statistics and write-off Mãori students as being less likely to succeed: ‘under-achievers’. Without breaking those patterns of self-fulfilling prophecy at some point, the ever-decreasing circle of failure will simply continue, ad infinitum.

For Murfitt, Te Kotahitanga is a catalyst for breaking negative stereotyping and deficit thinking. “Really what we’re doing is changing society – it’s a massive challenge -- but if we don’t, New Zealand is not going to go ahead.”

Change across the board starts with teachers, the majority of whom are high-quality professionals dedicated to the wellbeing of all their students; driven by the kids they teach. But Te Kotahitanga asks teachers to move focus away from themselves in the classroom and on to the students; it calls for a student-centric approach to learning rather than the

traditional teacher-led model.Murfitt reflects on what has been found

through research of effective teaching practices here in New Zealand, and elsewhere. “All teachers have a significant impact on achievement,” Murfitt says. He goes on to explain that although research found this to be overwhelmingly the case, in the past many teachers themselves did not acknowledge their own effect on student outcomes.

“Mãori students were saying teachers make a difference, teachers are important; Mãori parents were saying teachers make a difference; but the teachers themselves were saying something different.”

Te Kotahitanga goes a long way towards helping the teaching staff at Colenso realise the integral place they hold in the holistic wellbeing of their students.

Statistics say 30% of a student’s experience of life is determined by their school. Of that 30%, 25% is their teachers and only 5% is the school leadership, environment, buildings, processes, and all the other parts of the education equation. That means that a quarter of how a young person experiences and sees the world is determined by their teacher. That’s a huge responsibility, but reframed, a huge honour and opportunity also.

Both Regina Thomson and Bethany Millar, two girls full of potential with inspiring and rewarding lives ahead of them, put a lot of their achievements to date down to the strong, positive relationships they have with their teachers.

“I’ve always liked my teachers. My friends who are at other schools don’t often say that, but for me it’s the ‘family-ness’ of school, the community feeling we have here,” says Bethany.

Although teachers do hold an undoubtedly vital position in the factors for success, Regina’s stance is that the student really is at the centre of the learning, in every way.

“Teachers make a big impact, but in the end it’s your decision if you want to achieve, not the teachers.” Sage consideration from a young leader determined not to be just a statistical anomaly but a pacesetter for the sea change that could, given the necessary resources, make a real difference in New Zealand.

We want to hear from you

0800 22 55 348www.eit.ac.nz

» ‘Breaking the stereotype’ from page 41

»

Larry Dallimore is a stone inthe shoes of Hawke’s Bay bureaucrats, engineers and councillors. They wish he’d stop pestering them about the dynamics of coastal erosion and his proposed Westshore seawall.

Dallimore, who has lived at Westshore for over 30-years, is first to admit that people’s eyes mostly glaze over when he tries to explain the coastal processes that are unique to Hawke Bay and the simple construction measures that could stop erosion and save councils millions of dollars.

Although the retired contractor doesn’t have academic ABCs after his name, he’s got old school, hands-on credentials,

having worked for all the local authorities over decades constructing reclamations, seawalls and breakwaters.

Dallimore’s often verbose attempts to deliver reports on how he sees things seem to get him into deep water, particularly when he advocates the use of local limestone for coastal protection, rubbishes the 2007 Komar ‘shoreline erosion’ report and criticises the tendency for councils to ignore the flexibility in the National Coastal Policy Statement.

When he’s not playing golf or fishing, Dallimore has made it his business to keep a watchful eye on decisions relating to Westshore erosion, which extends 2.8km from the headland at the Iron Pot

(Whakarire Ave) to just past the end of Westshore Esplanade.

He’s attended all the meetings about the Napier City Council’s proposed 155 metre breakwater at Whakarire Ave and remains astounded at “the nonsense some people come up with” and the reliance on out-of-town experts to over-ride previous reports.

His current pet peeve is Napier mayor Barbara Arnott’s “fantasy” that if you add a new breakwater and keep renourishing with gravel, the sand will eventually come back to beaches north of the Port of Napier.

Dallimore wonders why Napier City would rather pay millions for ineffective

Keith Newman finds coastal campaigner Larry Dallimore as persistent as the current that perpetually sweeps gravel northward around Hawke’s Bay. With millions of public

dollars and a valuable coastline at stake, why aren’t councils responding to him?

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STONEWALLED IN

WESTSHORECampaigner insists coastal erosion is man-made

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

and therefore ‘unacceptable’. He could never quite figure that one out.

Although issues about length are holding up the breakwater consent process, Dallimore reckons it won’t get past submissions from surfers who believe it will ruin their surfbreak, HBRC interpretations of the coastal policy, and opposition from environmental groups.

That may swing the focus back to his 2.8km rock seawall for Westshore. However, Dallimore worries that even if it is considered consentable, it may be subject to artificially inflated costs. The case in point is the “over designed and extravagant” repair job on the badly maintained Hardinge Rd seawall.

Napier City contracted HBRC to repair a 45 metre section of the seawall; it used filter cloth, crushed concrete, limestone rubble and a 1.5m layer of limestone boulders costing $135,000 or $3000 per metre.

Dallimore reckons a simple ‘rip rap’ seawall with a base of graded rubble then a rock armour layer would have been adequate at less than half the cost.

Rubble rousing During the 1970s vast quantities of rock

rubble were removed from the Hardinge Rd foreshore reserve for retaining and reclamation work at Napier Port, along with “countless truckloads” of sand and gravel from the once endless supply at the Perfume Point Pit.

Gravel movement had slowed when the shingle pit closed around 1980 and it was no longer piling up on the beaches. At the time no one seemed to connect this to developments at the Napier Port.

In hindsight, Dallimore believes this helped starve the supply to the Westshore

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“It’s an engineering myth that you can put pebbles on a sandy beach and expect them to stay there or that you will eventually restore that beach.”

Breakwater resistanceDallimore says similar nourishment

issues plagued the beach at Whakarire Ave, where material was simply swept north over a seven year period. NCC built a rubble and limestone wall in 1994 to reclaim and protect the land, but it funnelled wave energy to the southern side of Westshore worsening the erosion.

NCC now plans to mitigate that with the $4 million breakwater project, plus increasing the height of the seawall and re-profiling the backshore, in the hope it’ll create a new sandy beach on top of a reef, something Dallimore struggles to comprehend.

He believes the Beca Infrastructure designed breakwater will only funnel even more wave energy northward into the erosion zone. He tried to explain why it won’t work in a 30-page ‘discussion note’, then a further 34 page addendum to Napier councillors but claims nothing was discussed, explained or refuted.

Dallimore wanted a public debate with himself and the Beca engineer answering seawall versus breakwater questions. That seemed acceptable until a point of order was raised, essentially stating “we can’t have our paid consultants being quizzed by our residents”. A seminar was then held but he was barred from attending.

He began discussing the issue with the Beca engineer reviewing his report, but that dialogue was shut down by Napier mayor Barbara Arnott, who apparently insisted it was costing the council money

Feature

Simple construction measures could stop erosion and save councils millions of dollars.

beach renourishment and a new breakwater than have an open discussion around his concerns, and the possibility his seawall proposal might have merit.

He reckons private property, Kiwi Beach public toilets and large areas of reserve in the erosion zone could be saved through extra strengthening to existing rock protection. By adding a permanent rock seawall the Westshore Surf Club and the entire beach reserve would also be secured, saving millions on renourishment costs.

Dallimore is convinced breakwater extensions at the Port of Napier, and the deepening of the shipping trench which gathers northbound coastal sediment, have been major contributors to Westshore erosion since the 1970s.

Rather than Napier ratepayers footing the bulk of the cost for protection works and renourishment, he wants to see the Port of Napier and its 100% owner HBRC taking ownership for the man-made problem and the solution.

The earliest attempt to protect Westshore was in 1987, when a badly executed renourishment plan, using incompatible material sourced from the estuary, turned the beach into a muddy mess. Then Beca Infrastructure designed a shingle bank with a “moderate repose” but with each swell Dallimore says beach access becomes impossible.

The renourishment plan is supposed to include dredge droppings brought in from Pacific Beach, Marine Parade, which would otherwise end up in the shipping lane and be removed at a cost of over $30 m3. However the dredges can’t get close enough to the Westshore erosion zone.

In fact, most of the spoil gets washed further north to Bay View where, according to Dallimore, they’re appreciating the improved surfing, a wider beach and greater demand for properties.

Overall, he says, the $4 million Westshore nourishment programme is a costly waste of time, made worse by the use of increasingly smaller pebbles from Pacific Beach that are essentially rejects from years of shingle plant screening.

Continued on Page 46 »

“It’s an engineering myth that you can put pebbles on a sandy beach and expect them to stay there.” larry dallimore

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

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An affordable ‘rip rap’ seawall would be an ideal long term solution.

Beach. Not satisfied with the reports that fingered the Port breakwater and the deepening of the shipping channel as major contributors, the Port of Napier, its 100% owner HBRC, and Napier City Council, commissioned Dr Paul Komar to review Beca’s breakwater studies and another 80 or so historical reports.

Komar, a retired oceanography professor from Oregon State University, began work in 2003 and delivered his “Hawke’s. Bay Environmental Change, Shoreline Erosion &. Management lssues” report in January 2007, identifying the 1931 earthquake as the major culprit.

Dallimore says there was no science to back that assumption or examples of comparable events in other parts of the world. A couple of lines borrowed from coastal expert Dr Jeremy Gibb stated erosion began at Westshore in 1962. “It’s a myth. I have photographic evidence and a good memory that it didn’t start until the late 1970s.”

He remains puzzled at Komar’s conclusion that the Port of Napier breakwater has reduced erosion losses, sheltered Westshore from storm waves, halved wave heights and bought relative stability to the beach.

But what really gets Dallimore is

Catchment Board — that extraction continues today under its successor the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC).

“The big stone was taken out for railway ballast and chips for roading then the small stuff was dumped back in the river to go out the river mouth to Awatoto.”

There used to be “beaches of shingle and stone” on either side of the Tutaekuri River. “We’d be in there with a front-end loader removing it at the direction of the Catchment Board. They thought we were helping them take the meander out of the rivers but while we were doing that we were also lowering the gradient of the riverbed.”

Today, he says, the Awatoto plant can’t get stones large enough for shingle chips which, along with sand, are the pay dirt of any shingle company. “They have to get it from the river system and that’s continuing to starve the supply to Hawke Bay.”

Dallimore’s got no issue with the Port of Napier or Awatoto going about their business, but suggests they need to take some responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Seawall matter of gravityWhich brings us back to the Westshore

seawall. Dallimore thought he’d try and help Napier City with some ideas on

the almost emotional: it’s “time to put aside the placement of blame on the construction of the Port’s breakwater” and get on with improved recreational development of the shore. The beach has continued to decay.

He says it appears Komar’s conclusions are based on the breakwater as it existed about 1980 as there’s no mention of the deepening of the shipping channel and other major impediments to the flow of beach replenishment. “He then ends up asking people to stop blaming the Port and get on with it, like some kind of psychologist.”

Dallimore irreverently asserts that in Hawke’s Bay the Komar report has more power than the Treaty of Waitangi. “It’s the defining document. Everyone keeps referring back to it but if you read it carefully you discover how much has been missed and realise whose interests are being protected.”

Dallimore, who spent 23 years as Hawke’s Bay Harbour Board’s preferred contractor, claims decades of removing shingle from the region’s rivers has contributed to Hawke Bay’s man-made erosion.

He says millions of cubic metres of shingle were removed with full knowledge of the then Hawke’s Bay

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An affordable ‘rip rap’ seawall would be an ideal long term solution.

wall design back in 2009. That’s when his disillusionment with the public process began.

“I got labelled a self-styled expert by the Napier mayor before she even read my assessment and that’s where the disdain started. I’ve been shoved around ever since.”

Essentially he says the best way to reduce wave energy is dissipation and gravity. “An affordable ‘rip rap’ seawall would be an ideal long term solution, causing uplift while the rocks created white water to filter down to reduce the backwash.”

He says local limestone has been successfully used for seawalls and reclamations for decades; he supplied 352,000 tonne of rock from four different quarries over 23 years for different projects.

For a time, Dallimore had much higher hopes for the Westshore seawall; a proposal was put forward in 1998 but dashed when the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) recommend imported rock be used.

The project cost soared to $60.4m with annual maintenance of $350,000 — and with it the myth that local limestone rock

is not suited for coastal construction. Beca Consultants recommended rock from Tauranga and New Plymouth be used for the Whakarire Ave breakwater at $90-$100 a tonne for transport alone. They admitted in 2010 that they had not investigated rock from two local quarries.

Dallimore says advice presented to NCC by both NIWA and Beca “was bullshit then and an utter disgrace now” adding unnecessary cost to projects. “We’re in one of the most prolific limestone areas in the North Island — it’s lying in the valleys up the Taupo Rd — you don’t even have to dig it out and you don’t need resource consent to extract it or place it.”

Meanwhile the war of words continues. Dump the Whakarire Ave breakwater, says the lone coastal crusader, and concentrate on repairing and strengthening existing limestone rock protection that has not been maintained for decades.

And he urges the HBRC and Port of Napier to step back from their fortressed positions and take some of the pressure off Napier ratepayers by picking up part of the tab for ongoing renourishment and protection work.

Napier City CEO Neil Taylor says he and mayor Barbara Arnott have struggled with the difficult issue of Westshore for over 20-years, and he doesn’t believe the mayor has any axe to grind. He’s convinced replenishment has stopped the beach retreating the way it was in the 1990s.

“Larry thinks it’s simple and his solution is right, but I’ve read the reports and don’t see the evidence for that. I don’t believe there’s a single answer.”

He wouldn’t be drawn into the question of whether the erosion was man-made or not, but says Dallimore’s dismissal of Komar is unfortunate. “We went a long way to find someone who knew what he was talking about.”

To his credit, Taylor says, Dallimore has read all the reports and background material, but “he’s got strong opinions and it’s hard to talk to people who have already formed the end view”.

Taylor says he’s open to hearing further from Dallimore and anyone else when there’s a hearing on the breakwater issue.

nCC responds

Alarmist – n: a person given to spreading needless alarm; - adj: spreading needless alarm.Alarmed – n: frightened expectation of danger or difficulty: -v.tr – aroused to a sense of danger. (Concise Oxford Dictionary)

While there may well be a hard core of alarmists muscling in on the fracking debate, we haven’t met one yet. But there are a rapidly growing number of citizens – more than 2000 signed a recent petition – who are certainly alarmed.

Until quite recently there was no common knowledge that the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) on behalf of Government, had allocated permits for oil exploration across 1.7 million hectares of Hawke’s Bay and East Coast, or that TAG/Apache would be drilling an exploratory well in Porangahau using the relatively new technology of horizontal hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, right about now.

As news of wholesale exploration permit allocations across NZ emerged, so did that much feted – or slated (depending on your point of view) documentary Gas Land appear, striking fear into the hearts and minds of many. This documentary follows the aggressive pursuit of oil and gas across North America by multi-billion dollar oil corporates – largely unregulated and seemingly unstoppable – leaving a devastating legacy of environmental destruction, water and air pollution, and severe effects on human health. It is sobering viewing and the many hundreds of local people who have now seen that

documentary want assurances that such a situation could never happen in Hawke’s Bay. Not unreasonable.

So who can provide such assurances? The Government?

MED’s role is to allocate permits. The job of managing them is that of local or territorial authorities under the Resource Management Act 1991. Here, that is the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC).

It seems incomprehensible that central government, now touting oil and gas sales as the new economic saviour, has no cohesive strategy for managing what they are hoping will become a major economic industry, little known outside Taranaki. There is no direction or framework to guide consenting authorities in their approach; no integrated regulatory framework; a woefully pitiable pool of expertise to manage and monitor the industry. Just the Resource Management Act (RMA) with each Council applying its own rules and policies under its Regional Resource Management Plans (RRMP).

The debate around environmental impacts, short and longer term, has gone viral; the great divide between ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ has grown wider and deeper – with claims, counter-claims, accusations of ignorance on the one side or spin-doctoring on the other.

Time to pauseA pause in proceedings and some critical

thinking is sorely needed. While the onus is on central government

to address the calls for caution around the implications of wholesale oil and gas

exploration and production in this region, the immediate focus is on HBRC, who must manage the pending consent application from TAG/Apache for an exploratory well in Porangahau.

Not a biggie, you might think. Does it set a precedent? Is it a Trojan Horse? In verbal discussion HBRC chief executive Andrew Newman, says “absolutely not”. In a later written paper, it appears as: “if an industry was to develop in the future … the tests and assessment process may (underlined) become broader as a larger number of bores were considered”. Not so reassuring!

Mr Newman states that, while the RRMP is silent on hydraulic fracturing specifically, there are “sufficient rules to cover consent applications for bores that are used for petrochemical exploration and associated activities”. So is it a matter of finding the right boxes to tick? Will this be enough to reassure those concerned that exploration and production of oil and gas across our region could never get out of hand?

The Council’s stance is clear: “It is not the role of the Regional Council to have a view for or against oil exploration in Hawke’s Bay. Rather, it is the council’s role to gather the information it needs to make an informed decision on any resource consent application it may receive in the future”

A sensible approach. The big question is ‘where do you gather the information?’

There is virtually no resident expertise on oil and gas exploration in New Zealand outside the industry itself (which has a vested interest in progressing exploration),

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by ~ PAULINE ELLIOTTSpokesperson for lobby group Don’t Frack the Bay

FRACKERSAlarmists or Alarmed?

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and the Taranaki Regional Council (TRC). Apart from RMA consents for water take and disposal, TRC does not have extensive experience in processing consent applications for fracking. Only in August of last year, following legal advice, did it declare a requirement for consent applications for these activities!

Council staff are working with industry players to gain a better understanding of exploratory operations and in February, at the invitation of Apache Corporation, HBRC co-funded a fact finding tour for a staff member to visit British Colombia. This was an internal “knowledge building” exercise, and the public was not privy to a full report. However, a two-page summary noted that Canadian authorities “...confirm that hydraulic fracturing opponents do not represent the facts of the issues presented to provide a balanced view.”

Getting a balanced viewIt seems a “balanced view” is pretty hard

to come by! Petitioners calling on HBRC to make fracking a prohibited activity until an independent enquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) could investigate, found such a move would require a change in the RRMP – a process that currently takes around eight years.

However, Councillors did unanimously support Cr Remmerswaal’s motion to request such an investigation. In recent weeks PCE, Dr Jan Wright, has determined there is a “substantive case under the Environment Act” and has announced an official investigation. She expects to be reporting to Parliament by the end of the year.

Good news, right? Maybe. It will provide the long awaited independent

investigation, but it has no bearing on the consent process in the meantime. Her findings and recommendations may or may not influence government thinking, but we will get a “balanced view”.

So how does the public gain confidence that of course there’s no conspiracy! That Hawke’s Bay will not become another Gas Land – (or indeed another Tasmania or NSW, where current oil and gas expansion is devastating landowners)?

The most obvious way of ensuring transparency and confidence in this process is for the TAG/Apache consent application to be publicly notified. This provides for the full application to be made public and the opportunity for questions or concerns to be addressed through submissions.

The RMA specifies the grounds for public notification. Section 95A requires notification “where it decides ... that the activity will have or is likely to have adverse effects on the environment that are more than minor”. The whole argument of concern is that we simply do not know if effects will be more than minor. Maybe The PCE’s parliamentary report might tell us?

“Special circumstances” is another ground for public notification. Could the Regional Council consider fracking, a new activity for this region for which there is no reference in the RRMP, as a “special circumstance”? Not easily, apparently. The RMA is a minefield and open to legal challenges. Over the past year a number of consent decisions have been overturned by the Court of Appeal, at a cost to rate payers. So there is a need for diligence. While significant public concern is not in itself sufficient reason, what provisions could make the TAG/Apache consent publicly notifiable?

The applicant themselves can ask for an application to be publicly notified. Alex Ferguson heads the Apache operation in New Zealand and has made a commitment, both in writing (TAG/Apache Information Pack, October 2011) and verbally at a full Council meeting (January 2012), to being transparent and “building solid relationships with local communities”.

In the spirit of that commitment, Mr Ferguson was asked if Apache would consider requesting public notification of their application to drill at Porangahau. At the time of this writing, no response had been received.

Right now TAG/Apache could be drilling their first exploratory well near the tiny coastal settlement of Porangahau. At the time of writing, an application for Resource Consent had not been lodged, but is imminent. If approved, the people

of Porangahau can expect to see and hear drilling 24 hours a day over 21 days; at least one, possibly two, hydraulic ‘fracks’; around 400 heavy duty transport trucks in and out over 33 days; plus the steady work flow of traffic into and around the site over that time. This is just one small exploratory drill way down in Central Hawke’s Bay. Does it matter?

MPs Craig Foss and Chris Tremain support oil and gas exploration in Hawke’s Bay as a new industry. Both have stated “but not at any cost”. So what cost would be OK? What cost would not be OK? Who determines the cost? At what point could it be deemed too high? Who will make that call? Will it be us, or will it be our grandchildren?

Economist Brian Easton notes (Listener Mar 31–April 6) “We are world experts at shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”. He cites Pike River, leaky buildings, the finance sector … and Dr Jan Wright adds water quality to that list. If, by foregoing a six months pause until Dr Wright’s investigation is completed, we find the oily horse has bolted, we might not be able to shut the gate!

Here is a reminder:

“Since its inception in 1954, Apache has been driven by a relentless pursuit of opportunity to profitably grow an independent oil and gas company for the long term benefits of our shareholders.”G.Steven Farris Chairman of the Board & Chief Executive.

New Zealand is definitely part of the “relentless search”, but not as a shareholder!

Ideas & Opinions

The obvious way to ensure transparency in this process is for the TAG/Apache consent application to be publicly notified.

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The ability to delivery tangible benefits from the latent potential of Hawke’s Bay’s Mãori economy will depend on strong leadership, improved management of existing resources, wise investment of Treaty of Waitangi settlements and a commitment to tackle the youth unemployment crisis.

The estimated billion dollars of Hawke’s Bay Mãori assets; including ongoing treaty settlements, is a pittance compared with the national Mãori economy, which more than doubled between 2007 and 2011 to $36.9 billion, according to Business and Economic Research Limited (BERL).

Hawke’s Bay Treaty settlements will have far less impact than other regions; nine

iwi (tribes) and hapu (sub-tribes) will each receive around $25-$30 million from the overall payment capped at $170 million.

Former Hawke’s Bay Mãori Business Network (HBMBN) chairman Jason Fox says, failure to go with a single investment entity prevents local Mãori from having sufficient clout to make a real difference.

While local authorities are looking at collaboration to avoid duplication of resources, Fox says fragmented Treaty settlements will see Hawke’s Bay Mãori heading toward patch protection.

“If they don’t nail it down early, the Mãori community will suffer because decisions that have a stronger community influence can’t be made....What is needed

is good leadership.”Fox says the Hawke’s Bay economy

is dominated by up to 20 large businesses who will continue to do what they’ve always done and Treaty-based investments of around $30 million, returning perhaps $1-$2 million a year, won’t make much difference.

Ngati Kahungunu, set for one of the larger settlements, sees its payout as foundational to the tribe’s economic revival, planning investments in traditional fisheries and farming enterprises, technology and new business opportunities.

The third largest iwi in the country is already in entrepreneurial mode, developing a $7-$10 million innovation

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BRIMMING WITH POTENTIALMÃORI ECONOMY

Keith Newman asks whether the vision from the eye of the hawk is strong enough topull Mãori and mainstream economies together for the good of Hawke’s Bay.

‘Heretaunga te Haaro o te Kaahu ki Tuawhakarere’A hundred pathways, life giving waters and beauty that can

only be seen through the eye of a hawk.hawke’s bay mãori whakatauki (or proverb)

Waimarama Mãori Tourism wins rave reviews from tourists

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It’s estimated there are up to 1000 Mãori-owned businesses operating in Hawke’s Bay.

Wixon suggests the missing ingredient is enterprise; preparing Mãori to think for themselves, so they can generate work and business. That means doing a better job of exposing them to the opportunities and what is going on in the region.

Taiwhenua o Heretaunga, one of the region’s biggest employers of Mãori with about 160 staff and a current annual turnover of $11 million, began with government-funded health, education and social services contracts and is now investing in property and housing.

Chief executive Alayna Watene encourages Mãori businesses to take a more positive stance to the challenges they face. She says individuals and boards need to operate in an environment of confidence if they’re to take calculated risk and build a strong entrepreneurial work ethic.

Watene says the global economic crisis is forcing the Government to explore public-private partnerships with organisations that can deliver better services than it can, and creating “lots of opportunities for well educated and experienced Mãori”.

She says, the large number of young people “not engaged productively” in Hawke’s Bay – 50% of Mãori youth are unemployed – can be seen negatively or as a resource to be managed with “vision, strategy and effort”.

The need for social, cultural, educational and up-skilling should

and iwi economic advisor, Karl Wixon, says the best way to describe the local Mãori economy is “a bunch of latent potential yet to be realised”.

He’s been working with the Government’s Mãori Economic Development Panel on regional solutions to Mãori business growth; while there’s no shortage of ideas, he says there is “a shortage of people with commitment to do something about them”.

Wixon says any talk of a Mãori economy has to take into account household income, which is closely linked to education and employment, where Mãori have problem statistics. Ironically, the biggest employers of Mãori are in education, as well as health and social services.

He warns changing demographics should be a wake-up call for the region. By 2050 the workforce will comprise mainly Mãori and Pacific Islanders with a growing number of Asians.

“If you look at current levels of achievement, education and employment and project that forward it’s not a good look.”

He says there needs to be a lift in achievement if the region is to have a qualified, productive and more employable workforce, although there seems to be little effort in tackling this problem.

While there’s increasing pressure at tertiary and secondary school level to prove relevance, Wixon says we’re not good at connecting this with the local economy. Consequently there are dire shortages at both the top and the bottom of the labour market.

“At the top end, Mãori businesses are often deficient in governance and management to help them grow. At the other end we struggle finding a qualified workforce including those who can operate machines or drive vehicles — we’re not proactively addressing this.”

centre at Ahuriri for technology and business, r&d and Mãori culture.

Other groups will go for a mix of land or sea-based assets and cash, and associated management plans to deliver the best return for their people.

Preparing to prosperHenry Heke, Hawke’s Bay regional

account manager for Te Puni Kokiri, the Ministry of Mãori Development, believes the Mãori economy in Hawke’s Bay could be worth up to $1.2 billion including existing assets, investments, businesses and treaty settlements.

He personally knows of at least six Mãori-owned SMEs valued at between $850,000 to a million dollars, employing up to a dozen people, and is aware of another three in that range.

They’re mainly tradespeople in services, installation and construction, including utility companies with their own fleet of trucks and plant, engaged in laying fibre optic cable or power lines or in the decorating or insulation business.

TPK is assisting a number of Mãori businesses achieve growth so that when the economy recovers in 3-4 years they’ll have quality staff, good systems and competitive products and services.

Heke says, business owners have to realise it’s not a charity and they can’t employ family members and look after the nephews and nieces and remain sustainable. “If you ask these guys what it takes to get from a one man band to turning over $160,000 - $500,000 and on to a million, they’ll tell you it requires good systems and processes.”

It’s estimated there are up to 1000 Mãori-owned businesses operating in Hawke’s Bay, mostly small one to five person operations, plus several medium and large organisations and trusts that own significant farming and forestry blocks.

Havelock North-based company director

“The local Mãori economy is a bunch

of latent potential yet to be realised.”

karl wixon, iwi economic advisor

Continued on Page 52 »

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There’s no point in having land if all you can do is stand on it and look at it.

present an opportunity for certain types of organisations to invest in the future. “Work out what you have to offer that will give confidence so they can apply themselves educationally or in practical terms.”

Watene says great leaders emerge in times of change, suggesting Mãori businesses take a history lesson from Watties, Fletchers or Carters who “cut their gums on services or products that were required in their time”.

They looked at what services or commodities were required, made good choices, gained momentum, built capacity and capability and then went national and international. “Mãori businesses are no different.”

Reviving wastelandsIf the Mãori economy is to make a

difference in Hawke’s Bay, Karl Wixon says management bodies need to take a good hard look at their vast non-productive land assets.

In the Hastings district alone, he says, 8% of the land is collectively owned under Mãori Land Court title as part of the Te Ture Whenua Act, of which only 30% is managed by functioning administrative bodies.

Wixon is concerned some land owners expect very little from their investment,

charging cheap leases simply to cover rates or; where the land is unused, applying for a rates waiver.

Barriers to action can include a lack of management skills or the fact there are so many absentee ‘owners’ it seems impossible to do anything without everyone’s consent.

Wixon says managers of Mãori-owned land should learn from profitable enterprises around the country. He cites Parininihi Ki Waitotara (PKW) which aggregated 15 Mãori farms, has dairy interests in Taranaki and Australia, and is the largest regional supplier to Fonterra.

Meanwhile Ngati Porou Whanui runs 42 forestry blocks, about 6000 hectares, around Gisborne and sources indicate Ngati Kahungungu interests are considering a similar plan near Napier.

Wixon, however, suggests a reality check might be in order if jobs are an expected outcome from land and sea-based investments which tend to be low employers.

Tom Manaena from Poutama Trust agrees land can mean ongoing investments for a low return. “The government’s not going to give you the good stuff so you have to invest a couple of million to bring those properties up to a productive level and then manage them.”

Even then he says you might only get 2% return after five years. “You might be better off investing in bonds at 6% return.

There’s no point in having land if all you can do is stand on it and look at it.”

TPK’s Henry Heke has been assisting 290 Mãori forestry block owners get up to speed with carbon trading, but says around 1000 others ignored the 2011 deadline for payments or exemptions and therefore “missed the waka”.

Across the three iwi boundaries he’s responsible for, he says, there’s a Mãori capital investment of about $85 million in forestry. “Some have said, ‘carbon you can’t touch it, you can’t feel it’ but when I tell them it could be worth $10m to your trust they change their attitude immediately.”

The ‘P’ principalEyebrows raise when Heke says

“P is the new in-word” but relax again when he explains, “you don’t smoke it; it’s protein, protein, protein and people, that’s what New Zealand is going to be exporting – beef, lamb, dairy, fish and people with skills.”

He insists there’s no such thing as marginal Mãori land. “Hold on to the land, ensure it’s used properly. If you’ve got hill country it may be outstanding for forestry or tourism purposes or producing manuka honey.”

Heke says Mãori have to get smarter in “how we design our countryside” to keep in line with what the world needs.

»

“Everyone needs help with being

entrepreneurial.” alayna watene

»

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Why wouldn’t left voters support the Greens? ~ David Farrar – New Zealand Herald

Better Local Government ~ MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Water quality in new Zealand: Understanding the science ~ PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

What You Don’t Know Can Kill You ~ JASON DALEY – Discover Magazine

Dark side to economic glow in Oz ~ GREG ANSLEY – New Zealand Herald

Average Is Over ~ THOMAS FRIEDMAN – New York Times

Goodbye NZ, hello $100,000 ~ AMELIA WADE – New Zealand Herald

Not stimulated enough? Go to www.baybuzz.co.nz/brainfood and try these articles, reports and opinions.Guaranteed to stir your juices!

BRAINFOOD

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There’s no point in having land if all you can do is stand on it and look at it.

“We produce the cheapest protein in the world. It rains, grass grows and everything eats it, except for the fish, and we’re pumping out people even faster than some of these other commodities.”

As China’s population increases by a billion people, he asks who’s going to feed them? “They’re moving from rice to t-bone steaks and we produce the cheapest.”

The demand for exporting Kiwi skills is also increasing and while Mãori may lack in some areas of qualification, they make up for that in commitment, if they feel embraced and motivated.

Heke says a lot of skilled Mãori could easily head to Christchurch to help the rebuild there or pack up the family and head across the Tasman for better job prospects and dollars, but quality of life and family in Hawke’s Bay are overriding factors.

If Mãori are paid what they think they’re worth as contractors, suppliers or workers and know people value and respect their services, that makes for a happier community, he says.

“If you live in Flaxmere Henare O’Keefe values you regardless; if you are in business he values you even more because you create jobs and opportunity.”

Network or notwork?The Hawke’s Bay Mãori Business

Network (HBMBN) may be a kind of litmus test on how mainstream business and those engaged in the Mãori economy can bridge cross-cultural misunderstandings.

HBMBN was established in 2008, bringing about 50 members under the umbrella of the Hawke’s Bay Chamber of Commerce, to network with each other and the wider business community.

However, former chairman Jason Fox wonders whether the Chamber fully understood the opportunities to develop a strategy around Mãori unemployment and a Mãori business incubator. “We never really crossed that bridge with any conviction”.

Fox, a lawyer and director of several companies who’s just been poached away to manage Ngati Whatua ki Te Kaipara’s $60 million settlement, says his role was “to keep jabbing the puku of the Chamber, the board and influential people”.

He says Mãori wealth creation, and business and investment philosophies, must be based around a strong sense of community wellbeing — a ‘paradigm of sharing’ that is often not understood by non-Mãori business.

You can’t have meaningful honest conversations about helping each other if

you operate in silos and don’t build trust and friendship. “Many in the Chamber weren’t interested in projects unless it was good for their business — that’s a very narrow way of looking at how our community works.”

He says the real influence will occur when Mãori businesses are able to employ 10-15% of the 40,000 strong Mãori Hawke’s Bay population.

Meantime, examples of businesses who are doing it right, according to HBMBN, include Waimarama Mãori Tourism, which runs tours and corporate team-building events on a property that includes a plant nursery and farm; Mesa Fibre Mill in Hastings, which processes alpaca fibre, garments and meat; European Gourmet, which produce stocks, sauce and heat and eat foods; Cultureflow, which creates Mãori language courses; Smart, outsourcing for accounting and call centre operations; East Coast Packaging, producing industrial and horticultural packaging in Hastings; and forestry management group Forest Resources Ltd in Porangahau.

Karl Wixon, another HBMBN founder, is also concerned the HBMBN failed to achieve wider connections and is hopeful

Ngati Kahungunu plans for a Mãori

Continued on Page 54 »

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Mãori businesses don’t want another strategic plan, they want an implementation plan.

business incubator can help meet the need.

Part of the problem he suggests is ‘the employment threshold’ which means small Mãori businesses aren’t gearing for growth. Poutama Trust commercial manager Tom Manaena, agrees, suggesting information and resources aren’t getting through to Mãori business owners.

While the HB Chamber, the HBMN and BusinessHB offer great opportunities, Manaena says Mãori aren’t comfortable in that environment and need mentors and Mãori entrepreneurs to lead the way.

“I went to the launch of Business Hawke’s Bay but it was like ‘spot the Mãori’ — there were only two or three of us there. Many are whakama or a bit shy. We’re a tribal people but I think we need to make more of an effort to step up out of our comfort zone.”

Poutama Trust invests about a million annually, $100,000 in Hawke’s Bay, to give small Mãori businesses a leg up. The pan-tribal group want’s businesses to have “some skin in the game” by going 50-50 in investments that promise incremental changes in turnover.

That might be a web site, a marketing plan, developing a new product, taking on a business advisor or mentor or looking at export. The trouble is many of these micro-businesses seem to be running on the spot.

“They’re on a treadmill, they get up, go to work and its routine; they’re either not thinking strategically or are too comfortable where they are.”

Overall Manaena sees few entrepreneurial Mãori businesses in Hawke’s Bay that look like they’re able to get beyond the gate to national expansion or export level. Finding working capital and adding staff can create its own issues. “That’s where they need advice or mentoring and they often don’t know where to find those resources.”

Taiwhenua o Heretaunga CEO Alayna Watene, says the Chamber and the Employers and manufacturers Association (EMA) are there for a purpose “and provide good networks, advice, direction and advocacy.” She says it’s not just Mãori who feel a little daunted in these organisations but anyone who’s a “fledgling”.

She suggests persevering, as “everyone needs help with being entrepreneurial.”

Changing old habitsTPK’s Henry Heke, says Hawke’s Bay

Mãori seem to have forgotten their entrepreneurial heritage. “The Mãori economy is not new – we provided services to the pioneers. Prominent Hawke’s Bay chief Renata Kawepo had flax mills at Omahu, ran flour mills, gardens and farms and gave 5000 sheep to a Whanganui chief to start a business for his tribe.”

“We need to be owners again; to drive our own economy, to be investors and add value through services that are in demand.”

He points to Marcus Pohio as an inspirational Mãori businessman. After a couple of decades of flipping burgers he

worked his way up the ranks to take over the Hastings McDonald’s franchise, then added Taradale and is about to make it three with Havelock North.

Should Mãori consider buying shares in the Port of Napier? Yes, he says. Or perhaps the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council ought to be approaching Mãori to engage in joint ventures in forestry on Mãori land?

“They could join with Mãori for a sustainable 5000 hectare pine forest, invest in the Mãori staff to manage that, offset it against carbon emissions and share the return on timber and carbon credits. Let’s have that conversation?” says Heke.

And there’s huge potential in the Wairoa microclimate. “You could harvest apples three weeks before Hastings and sell them for $38 a box before they slip down to $18 three weeks later in the main season.”

So is that just a good idea? “No it’s happening now as part of the Mãori economy,” says Heke.

He continues to talk up the Mãori economy saying, the time for hui is over — it’s action time. “Mãori businesses don’t want another strategic plan, they want an implementation plan.”

In the end he says, everyone needs to be reminded that when the client weighs up products or services, they’re not going to buy something because it’s Mãori, but because it’s the best value for money.

Only then will the fact it’s produced and branded in Hawke’s Bay by Mãori become the regional and indigenous differentiator.

»

“At the top end, Mãori businesses are often deficient in governance and management to help them grow. At the other end we struggle finding a qualified workforce.” karl wixon

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The hottest destination

in the regionby ~ DOUGLAS LLOYD JENKINS

Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery has been closed to the public for what seems a very long time. However, even the casual observer can now understand why, as activity onsite increases daily and the true scale of the project becomes more evident.

Less obvious is the work that continues offsite, where museum staff and volunteers are preparing for reopening and the launch of the new facility. On top of such details as packing, moving and unpacking over 100,000 collection items, the team is now creating eight new exhibitions across the fifteen exhibition spaces, all of which are required to open on the same day.

This redevelopment, on the books for more than twenty years, is powered by both a vision for a museum and art gallery that is more representative of the cultural wealth of the region, but also by a pragmatic reality. The Museum holds a very fine collection, owned by the people of Hawke’s Bay and governed by

the Hawke’s Bay Museums Trust, but a collection that had outgrown its home. Those who came behind the scenes never failed to remark on the working conditions and the overcrowded facilities in which the collection lived and staff worked.

Now 45 weeks into an 85 week project, there have been a few delays. None of which are expected to affect re-opening; all of which will deliver major long term benefits. In particular, the 1936 Louis Hay-designed museum and gallery will now be one of the few Art Deco buildings in Napier to benefit from what we’ve learnt from the Christchurch earthquake – it is being re-strengthened according to the latest recommendations. While initially invasive, this work will be all but invisible once the refurbishment is completed.

Although the attention of passers-by focuses on the new wing, it is the restoration work on the Louis Hay building that promises to be something

of a revelation to those that know the building. The restoration of the old entranceway – the dramatic steps were unceremoniously removed for a loading dock in the 1970s – gives a hint of the grandeur to be revealed. The old oak doors, used for many years in the Century Theatre, will once again open into a vaulted entrance which leads into the Octagon Gallery.

This entrance will be used by those visiting the Regional Archive, home to an extensive collection of photographs, manuscripts, diaries, letters and other printed materials. While these resources are already heavily used by researchers and students, the new Regional Archive facility is being expanded to include specialist archive storage areas, a public reading room and two dedicated exhibition galleries devoted to displaying the history of the region. Cataloguers are working away behind the scenes to deliver a greater understanding of what

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The Arts

The Museum holds a very fine collection, but a collection that had outgrown its home.

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lurks in the collection and this work will be supported by a new online catalogue – funded in part by Lotteries New Zealand – to ensure a greater degree of public access than ever before.

Many of these newly researched holdings will be included in our opening regional history exhibitions. We have always had difficulty in telling the Hawke’s Bay story, not in the least because the events of 1931 tend to overshadow. The new gallery spaces in the regional archive wing will allow us to tell historical stories either side of that date and thus give both locals and tourists greater access to the history of the region that surrounds them.

On the ground floor of the new wing, the entrance foyer and shop will greet visitors as they arrive through the Tennyson

Street entrance. A new education suite just off the foyer will provide a purpose-built space at the heart of the new building for the over 10,000 students who visit the museum every year. The foyer will provide visitors with a new meeting place – while dramatic views from the first floor of the new building will give a new perspective on Marine Parade and what is in effect a new town square bordered by the Museum, the Memorial Arches and the open colonnade of the Masonic.

The 1931 Earthquake exhibition finds a new home in the basement floor of the new wing. This show will capitalise on the success of earlier earthquake exhibitions – while at the same time presenting a raft of new research that has been done using the records of the day. This exhibition

will tell the human story of the Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.

New gallery spaces on the ground and first floors will allow for more of the collection to be exhibited, but also make it possible to bring in international touring exhibitions. The exhibition Treasures of the Han Dynasty from Xuzhou in China has already been announced and there will be others to come.

As it stands, visitor numbers to the museum were steadily climbing over the five year prior to closure. This was in a facility that many locals had simply forgotten and that some visitors couldn’t find. One thing is clear – on reopening, nobody will have to ask where the Museum and Art Gallery is … it will be the hottest destination in the region.

Tom Belford is an agitator. Last issue he asked me to navigate the pit full of alligators that constitutes the current local government debate in Hawke’s Bay. This issue it’s National Standards for primary school pupils, where some of the alligators involved may be pint-sized, but they’re just as snappy.

Too bad that I know less about these standards than most other people, having had no experience teaching in the primary schooling system!

So I decided to do some research – always a sensible starting point, although more boring than a good old-fashioned opinion. It didn’t really get me anywhere, apart from confirming that I knew more than I thought. There are some very interesting similarities between these National Standards and their introduction, and the difficult and fraught birth of NCEA and standards-based assessment for secondary school students – but more of that later.

After fruitless hours spent trawling through internet sites, newspaper archives and the like, I did what I should have done in the first place. I talked to a real live ‘consumer’ of the standards, in this case my niece, who was staying with us for the school holidays. At the age of nine, she has the family all well and truly sussed. She also seemed to have the standards sorted. They go something like this.

National Standards are a way to tell you where you are up to with your reading, your maths, your spelling and stuff, she said, depending on what year level you are in at school. Some of the kids will be below the national standard, some will be on it, and some will be above it.

What about the kids who are below it? I asked. Do they feel bad?

She doesn’t think so, because the teacher tells everyone that they all have

the whole year to improve on where they are, whether they are below, on, or above the standards, and her job is to help them do that. The teacher says the most important thing is to improve on where you are now, rather than worry about the standards.

So do you know where you sit? I asked.Yes, she said, because the information

gets sent to the parents, and her parents showed her the information. But not all the parents do – it’s their choice.

So what do you think about the national standards? I asked her.

They don’t really worry me, she said. I know what I’m good at and what I need to work on anyway. So I just get on with it really!

A girl after my own heart. Not that I’m biased… She just gets on with it.

THE GREAT DEBATE:

NATIONALSTANDARDSNational Standards are a measurement tool, not a fix. Let’s get on with it.

by ~ CLAIRE HAGUE, EIT Deputy Chief Executive

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in their learning. How good the school is at helping them to identify what they are good at, and what they need to improve on. How fired up they are about the world and life in general.

Above all, it’s about how much aptitude children have for ‘getting on with it’. Because you can’t beat resilience as a predictor of success – both in education and in life. As adults we all know that. And as adults I believe that we have a duty to model resilience for our children.

Assessment tools will come and go. They will be flawed. Successive governments will introduce them and make the same mistakes regarding implementation and communication that we all do when we’re launching new projects and breaking new ground. Some schools will “game” the system to make themselves and their students look better. Other schools will complain. There’s nothing new under the sun.

In the end – it’s pretty simple from where I’m sitting, and I have my niece to thank for clarifying things for me. National Standards are the latest development in the ever-changing world that is education. We can choose to live with them, recognise their weaknesses and risks, work to mitigate those, utilise the good bits if there are any, and simultaneously get on with the real and complex business of educating all of our young people.

Instead of refusing to implement national standards, we could refocus on refusing to leave any young people behind. Refusing to let any young people simply ‘disappear’. Then maybe we wouldn’t need National Standards at all.

Let the snapping begin!

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and depending on how they are used, could be a very damaging tool indeed. And this seems to be at the heart of the critics’ concerns about the standards themselves – that they are an imperfect device anyway (as most standards and their assessments are) and they can damage children and schools in the process.

Very similar concerns were raised about the changes to NCEA and the introduction of standards-based assessment into secondary schools some ten or so years ago.

The proverbial really hit the fan as I became a new Principal.

I remember facing upset parents at meetings as I tried to ‘inform’ them about the changes on behalf of government, responding to letters from concerned parents and members of the community, treading a dangerous path through union concerns, chairing fiery staff meetings with people sitting on both sides of the debate… and above all, trying to make sure that our students’ learning and life at school was not negatively impacted by the furor.

Maybe I was naïve back then, but as a school leader, I believed that leading the change so that it had the least possible negative effect on our school community was my core responsibility.

And I also believed (and had this confirmed repeatedly in my conversations with every child’s parents at the time of enrolment) that in the end, it’s not ‘standards’ and their measurement that are critical to children’s learning – it’s the things that sometimes can’t be measured easily at all. How safe they feel at school. How safe they feel at home. How good their teachers are. How engaged they are

Opinion

Instead of refusing to implement national standards, we could refocus on refusing to leave any young people behind.

Standards measure, not fixThe issue that attracts all the media

attention with regard to national standards is, of course, the fact that some people in the education profession feel so strongly about the pitfalls of national standards, that they are refusing ‘to get on with it’, and in doing so placing themselves and their schools at risk of biting the hand that feeds them – in this case the government, who pays their staff salaries, funds most of their students’ learning resources and helps bankroll their building projects.

Speaking of the government, I suspect that the National Standards were introduced as a tool to sharpen up the education sector with regard to that dismal tail of underachieving students – some 20% or more – whom the current school system in New Zealand and elsewhere in the OECD appears to be failing.

To be fair, the government had to do something. Despite spending millions of dollars over many years trying to fix this problem, there’s an alarmingly large group of kids who we simply keep ‘losing’ from the system and society altogether – they’re not at school, they’re not in training, and they’re not in work. It’s a national disgrace and a real worry. And there’s no doubt that if we don’t address the issues causing this, then as a country we are in for an even tougher future than a mere recession can conjure up.

But the National Standards aren’t going to fix the problem – they can simply help measure it. They can give parents and teachers and observers of schools some sort of guide as to how well their children are performing educationally, but standards are only a tool for measurement,

National Standards are a measurement tool, not a fix. Let’s get on with it.

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Inside Havelock North

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As a consumer, which Havelock North Village is yours?

A place to run errands – pick up mail and groceries, have a coffee and occasional meal, book some travel or see a movie. Or see your banker, accountant, web developer, or hairdresser. Or a place to buy au courant fashions, shoes, jewelry, gifts … or browse the $2 shop?

Obviously you can do it all in Havelock North. Park for free (shop employees not welcome). Walk to everything.

Sounds like the perfect mix of small-scale businesses. Must be thriving.

Well, not exactly.BayBuzz spoke with several merchants

in Havelock North to gauge how they see the ‘Village economy’ these days.

Overall, the last few years of down economy have seen consumers of all incomes tighten their belts, showing a new frugality that’s just as evident in Havelock North as the rest of the material world. But merchants do seem to see spending coming back, some saying their past year has been quite strong.

One perception that’s quickly dashed is that Village retailers bask in an enclave of well-heeled clientele driving all those BMWs and Range Rovers. It turns out they use those fancy wheels to get to the airport, and from there to ‘serious shopping’ in Sydney or North America.

Noted one local, someone will fly business-class to New York, put a serious dent in their credit card, then come back and wait for a half-price shoe sale. “How do you get people with money to spend it here?”

Village retailers have considered a ‘Buy

Local’ campaign in the past, but have shied away to date, fearing that other shopping precincts might ‘retaliate’.

In any event, there are plenty of households in Havelock North living on fixed incomes who in fact don’t have much discretionary income to spend. And that percentage of the population is growing.

Another misconception is that Havelock North swarms with out-of-towners who come to the Bay for weekend events and then spend in local shops. Only partly true say shop owners. With few exceptions – one retailer mentioned the Hospice Holly Trail weekend – these visitors spend on lodging and restaurants (whose owners and employees might in turn spend in HN), but not necessarily in retail shops … they have plenty more selection back home.

One merchant pointed out the importance of having the right mix of businesses in the Village. “The hairdressers, butcher, movie theatre, banks bring people into town over again, and then they might also shop for other things.” But another wants more diversity, “too many hairdressers, dress shops, shoe stores and real estate offices”.

While the mix is important, individual merchants have no control over it – the business next door could be a strong draw (a thriving café) … or it might not be (a slow-traffic realtor).

Then there’s buzz. As one retailer said, “Shopping is an experience … you engage with it and you’re reinforced by salespeople with the right attitude. Otherwise you might as well shop online.” It also might require a critical

mass of businesses willing to stay open more, including Sunday and some weeknights.

Unfortunately, if there’s one place where there is no buzz, it is Havelock North on a Sunday afternoon, and even many Saturday afternoons. It seems that most self-employed believe that five and a half days of work is enough. Without more establishments prepared to open on Sundays, weekend retailing will suffer. Those event attendees and wedding guests can’t do much more than have brunch and head back to the big city.

The consensus advice from retailers? Cater to the locals (outside visitors are gravy). Stress quality at all price points. Stay abreast of market change. Offer individualized service. It’s a small community … customer knowledge and word-of-mouth counts.

Said one retailer, “By far, most of my business is repeat business from locals.” And another, “Our locals are well-traveled and discerning. Whatever is being sold, they need to be offered quality … and a smiling face.”

On merchants’ wish list for making the Village more prosperous … greater loyalty from local consumers (“Don’t just say it, live it!”); some male-oriented retail (“Why must you go to Hastings to buy a golf ball?”); less Hastings Council pre-occupation with salvaging Hastings CBD; more Village events to draw foot traffic, especially on weekends; an art & music presence; and more professional services businesses (higher income employees, and more likely to bring in revenue from outside the Bay).

by ~ TOM BELFORD

Andrea Napier, one of theVillage’s most seasoned merchants

Photo courtesy of Tim Whittaker

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?

Between 1946 and 1965, 1.125million babies were born in New Zealand – 77% more than in the 20 years before the baby boom began.

As they reach 65 and move into the later decades of their lives, the challenge for business and central and local Government, will be to minimise the disruption caused by their wake and to fully understand the shape and nature of the changes New Zealand Baby Boomers will create around them.

Researcher Sharon Buckland provides a rosy picture of the attitudes and expectations of this cohort in her extensive study entitled the New Zealand Boomer Dreams Study 2009. She notes that the profile of the Boomer cohort is vibrant, adventurous and searching and that Kiwi Boomers don’t see themselves as ‘old’.

They have no intention of retiring; they intend reinventing their lives and the concept of work to suit their lifestyles. Life for them is a never-ending search for meaning and self-actualisation; wanting to enjoy every moment of the rest of their lives to the fullest, on their own terms; and to leave the world a better place when they die.

Given gloomy predictions of earlier forecasts, it is reassuring to note that they have no intention of ‘sponging’ off the young and expect to pay their own way all their lives.

Dealing with changeThis sounds fantastic and one would like

to believe that Boomers aged between 50 and 65 are making plans for a fulfilled and secure future. But probably many just hope for the best. Realistically, we may expect the best and plan for it, but change is with us whether we like it or not. We resist the very idea of change, and the older we get the more terrifying it becomes.

Change can come in an unpredictable way and sometimes with frightening suddenness. When my husband died at the

age of fifty-nine, for me it was like falling into a void. In my case, I was young enough (56) to make a new life here in Hawke’s Bay and in a relatively short time made new friends. Over the next years I would travel; grandchildren were born; I found exciting new interests; enjoyed my growing family; and thought long and hard about preserving my finances and maintaining my house and garden.

But time moves on, and needs change. Take housing, for instance.

A decade down the track I am beginning to think about my housing needs for the next twenty years … something smaller, easier and cheaper to maintain. I’m thinking that too much money is tied up in this place and that the garden is too large and it needs constant work.

So, I will have to face up to another change; which means I’m interested in what housing options are on offer – the small townhouses, the retirement village, or a cottage. Whatever … it should be in the swim of things close to town, a small place, affordable and charming.

Where shall I live?The Summerset Retirement Village in

Ada Street, Parkvale is a possible option. Typically, this, like many other retirement villages, is designed as a community, with small townhouses of various formats, all making the most of the lie to the sun and with central facilities such as a café, gym, library, salon, spa pool and bowls and petanque court.

The houses are placed in attractively landscaped grounds, with trees recently planted that will mature, further enhancing the landscape. The site has long views to Te Mata Peak and to neighbouring orchards. I’m impressed and so are the people who live there.

Residents buy a ‘license to occupy’ which means they don’t own the asset but will be recompensed the original value when

the house is vacated – less a fee to cover refurbishment. In addition, residents pay a ‘management fee’ that is currently set at $107 per week and calculated to reflect the value of National Superannuation – it covers costs such as insurance, rates, house and garden maintenance.

Needy residents are supported in their own homes with meals and personal care, which means they won’t need to move again. This is in line with how Government sees the future for Aged Care – that is to keep the elderly living in their own homes.

The problem with the retirement village located on the edge of a suburban area is that when the residents are no longer confident drivers they are too far from town to spontaneously walk to the shops and are dependant on the Summerset bus.

There is also the widely held perception that this is an option for old people and, as we know from the Dreams Study, Boomers do not see themselves as ‘old’. However, the people I met at the Ada Street Summerset love it, and for them life goes on as before, but with a lot less hassle and more security.

My personal preference would be a small but well-designed townhouse close to town or a natural amenity, with natural light and warmth from the sun and a small private garden or courtyard. I have seen a good example in the John Scott townhouses in Albert Street, Hastings that back onto Windsor Park and built in 1977. However, they don’t come on the market very often and it appears from my enquiries of the real estate market that they are pretty much unique in their compactness and appeal.

Perfectly located in the centre of Havelock North village is the cluster of St Columba’s Close houses designed by Sir Miles Warren, which are small and charming with their creeper covered walls. I love the fact that living here, one could slip out to the library for a book, wander around to the cinema to catch a movie, or have a latte at one of the cafes in Middle Road. Something like this could be my

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In this regular column, Kay Bazzard considers life’schanges for the Baby Boomer corps, as its first membershit age 65, bringing the issues home to Hawke’s Bay.

THE BEST YEARS OF

OURLIVES

dream house for retirement.Step up Andy Coltart! Andy has a vision

of town living that is based on the urban charm of the old towns of Europe, but with a New Zealand character. He and his son, Will, have been working on a concept that is intended to fit the needs of people with dreams like mine.

They own the best part of a one hectare area on Joll Road, bounded by Campbell Street and the Havelock North Primary School, including the site where the coffee shop Ya Bon is located.

Whilst the buildings have not been designed yet, the Coltarts are developing a layout of small privately-owned townhouses, with retail shops on the frontage of Joll Road, and apartments above. An access lane will curve through the site to serve about 30 smallish residences with courtyard gardens offering privacy and landscaped open spaces.

Land doesn’t often become available in the centre of town and this project coincides with Plan Change 54 – the Havelock North Village Centre – instigated by the Hastings District Council to rezone this area. In 2008 the Urban Design Framework identified this site as a key development site, with the potential to provide medium- to high-density housing

and a smattering of retail in the heart of the village.

The intention is to retain the ‘village’ character that is acknowledged as being so important to the people of Havelock North. This is now part of a Plan Change that will be integrated into the Hastings District Plan.

Knowing what your options are is always empowering. Facing up to significant

changes such as giving up the home you love is easier when you feel in charge and you have the time to work through the adjustments needed, mental and actual. I have time to make this transition and I think I am going to enjoy it.

For those requiring care, other choices must be made regarding living arrangements. We’ll look at those another time.

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Feature

Facing up to significant changes such as giving up the home you love is easier when you feel in charge.

I’d welcome your feedback about what you would like this ongoing column to address. Here are some of my ideas, but please feel free to add yours:• The kids are grown and it’s time we had

some fun. • Our adult children live overseas. What does

this mean to older NZers?• Getting good at something new – does it

really take 10,000 hours? • Starting again later in life:

Divorce? Dating at 60! New partner or staying single.

• Do we ensure an inheritance for the kids or use our assets to live well?

• Financial stress from divorce, poor

investments, redundancy, inflation.• To work or not? Earning while we still can,

changing work patterns and the job market for the over 60s.

• Looking after ourselves, diet and keeping fit.

• Experiencing the loss of a spouse. • Being disabled by stroke, heart attack, or

other chronic condition.• The increase in life expectancy,

vulnerability, geriatric care. • What choices should I make

about dying?• The trauma of selling one’s

treasured home. • Housing options for the very old.

More Issues for Baby Boomers?

Hastings, you sHould see us now!Come for morning tea in May and take a tour of the village.Join our sales manager Dave Atkin on a personal tour to see the changes at

Summerset in the Orchard. Our new Village Centre is nearing completion,

we have finished building another 29 villas and townhouses, and we are

bringing forward the next release to cope with the demand. Our planting

programme is also in full swing, so the village is looking great as well.

When it is finished in late June, the Village Centre will be home to lounges,

a library, computers, a pool table, a great little café and a hairdressing

salon. Outside, there will be an all weather bowling green, barbecue area

and children’s playground.

The Village Centre will also offer 5 care apartments.

To make a time for your morning tea and private viewing of the village,

please call Dave Atkin on 06 974 1312. We’re at 1228 Ada St, Hastings

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gaining a bachelor of commerce. By 1997 he was a marketing manager at Lion Nathan Breweries, where he was initially exposed to the business side of rugby. Then it was off to Europe, squeezing in belated OE’s for himself and Nicola. He landed at HJ Heinz, where assignments could have taken him anywhere in the world.

But then ‘the call’ came from NZ Rugby Union. He spent nine years at NZRU in Wellington, negotiating sponsorships, commercial licenses, television rights, and the professional players collective contract, and finishing as a member of the NZRU bid team that secured the 2011 Rugby World Cup hosting rights.

As gratifying as the NZRU post was, Fraser began thinking about a return to Hawke’s Bay. He always intended to return. “I think it’s just in the blood. My hub was Waipatiki Beach and I had memories of growing up with a terrific group of extended friends and family in a small community and so it was always a central thing to come back and build my family around that same network.”

He assumed that his opportunity in the Bay would lie in marketing, and thought to round out his experience by working on the agency side of the marketing business … “to know my competition from the inside out.”

That strategy took him to Ogilvy, where he became the agency head in Wellington, with clients including the Rugby Union. But that path pointed ultimately to Auckland (“I had avoided Auckland like the plague”), and soon it was time to focus on returning to Hawke’s Bay.

The family plan was that Nicola, also from Hawke’s Bay with her own career in finance as a chartered accountant, would stay at home upon the birth of their third child. The time was right, and the opportunity arrived in 2010 to join up with Simon at Tremains. Interestingly, over the years, friends in the Bay had warned him about “coming home too

Don’t come home too soon FRASER HOLLAND General manager, Tremains Real Estate

For Fraser Holland, the defining moment in his career path came in a motel room in Los Angeles.

He and his wife Nicola were midway between London, where Fraser was a marketing manager for HJ Heinz, and New Zealand. They awaited a call from the New Zealand Rugby Union. Fraser had applied for a position there and had been short-listed. His first interview had been from a phone box in northern Scotland.

The call would either come, or they were off for a few months in Mexico and South America … and whatever followed.

The call came. And Fraser returned to New Zealand as the marketing manager of the NZRU. How many New Zealand ex pats would like to enjoy that return path?!

Born in 1969, Fraser graduated from Napier Boys’, where he and Simon Tremain were deputy head boys together, a relationship that’s come full circle, as Fraser is now general manager of Tremain Real Estate.

He went on to University of Otago,

soon.” Their message was that “Hawke’s Bay will always be here, and it’s not changing at such a pace that you need to be here right now.”

Re-tracing his youth, Fraser’s bought a “piece of dirt” at Waipatiki for holidays and family time. Comparing his working life before returning: “Before there was no family life … you can do so much more in your day here in Hawke’s Bay … It’s all about finding a better balance.”

Yes, he says, there’s some loss of amenities and ready entertainment, but “it’s an easy price to pay, and change back.”

Tom Belford

From Telecom to Te AwangaTINA SYMMANS Director/consultant, Te Awanga

Leaving the big city living behind was the choice Tina Symmans made after watching with shock and horror the news footage of the twin towers attack, 9/11 in 2001. It seemed to exemplify the disconnect she felt in working in a high stress, high profile corporate career and living in the big city environment. She wanted to bring balance into her life and

THEY’RE BACK!

A familiar story told in Hawke’s Bay is of the prodigal son or daughter. BayBuzz is heartened to see many Hawke’s Bay

ex-pats returning to the fold with rich experiences and enhanced skills. We ask the ‘returnees’ where did they go,

what did they do and what prompted their return.

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chose Hawke’s Bay for its big skies and stimulating company.

Tina has been living in a cute beach cottage at Te Awanga since that time. Here she can revel in her lush rose-filled garden, fish when the whitebait or the kahawai are running or walk the dog along the shingle banks to gaze out to the ocean’s horizon. “It grounds me,” she says. “It balances the corporate life.”

She has continued her working career through the eleven years she has lived here. Being just 20 minutes from Napier airport has allowed her to commute to work in Auckland and Wellington. Her rationale was that most city commuters are stuck in traffic jams on the major motorways of those cities for at least the 50 minutes that she was airborne.

Tina Symmans was Telecom’s Director of Corporate Relations from 2009 until she resigned in December 2011, following the completion of the de-merger and separation of Telecom’s subsidiary company, Chorus, into an independent, publicly listed company, as part of Telecom’s bid to participate in the Government’s Ultra Fast Broadband initiative. Leading the Corporate Relations team – media relations, government relations, internal communications and community relations – she played a key role in navigating those changes.

Tina regards herself as privileged to have been involved in one of the largest deals in New Zealand corporate history and to have worked with a great team of people to effect the change efficiently and quietly.

More recently whilst working for Telecom, she helped established the Telecom Foundation, which looks after Telecom’s philanthropic and community-based initiatives and continues to serve as a director of the Foundation.

Following her departure from Telecom and resignation as a director of Turners and Growers she has given herself a summer off at home working in her garden, taking a holiday in Australia and giving herself time to relax and look ahead.

Based from home, Tina does consultancy work with businesses and organisations, loving the sense of doing meaningful work in assisting companies in their relationships with Government and politics, guiding them through the labyrinth of impending legislation, and providing guidance on reputation and issues management.

In 2008, Symmans, with Paddy Maloney, Charles Whyte and Bruno

Chambers, formed the ‘Future Ocean Beach Trust’ to strategise resistance to what they saw as a major environmental threat to the area. This was in response to the Hill Country Ltd proposal to the Hastings District Council for a plan change to develop 1,000 houses, plus amenities. It was a protracted but ultimately successful movement and through it she became embedded in the coastal community of Hawke’s Bay.

Kay Bazzard

It’s easy to turn a good grape into a bad wine LEITH ASHWORTH Winemaker, Matariki and Junction Wines

The path has been straight and true for Leith Ashworth. He’s always wanted to make wines … and make them right here in Hawke’s Bay.

Born in Canterbury, Leith grew up since age four on a farm in Takapau. He schooled at Hereworth and Palmerston North Boys’ High, then off to Lincoln University to study viticulture, gaining his degree in 2004. Now, just past the ripe age of 30, he’s recently become the Winemaker at Matariki Wines, and ‘moonlights’ in the same role for his family-owned Junction Wines.

Rugby is part of his story too. In 2005, after working a bit at Vidal’s, Leith was off to France to play a rugby season. Then back to Vidal’s, over to the US for a few months to work in the harvest season, then to France again (host of 2007 Rugby World Cup), then a third contract in France, then finally back to Hawke’s Bay,

landing at Matariki in 2009. Whew!Along the way, Leith married Tracy,

Canterbury born and bred, a Health Promotion Advisor for the District Health Board.

Throughout his excursions, Leith had one goal … bring everything useful he observed about winemaking abroad back to Hawke’s Bay. In that respect, Leith’s time outside the Bay was much more tightly focused than most of the ‘returnees’ interviewed in this series. One might query whether he ever really ‘left’ at all, or was it more like doing graduate study abroad?!

To Leith, Hawke’s Bay is a winemaker’s nirvana. Here the conditions are excellent, and the Bay’s varied soils and micro-climates allow for a wide spectrum of varieties to be produced with consistently exceptional quality.

He originally became interested in winemaking when his father started planting grapes on the family’s Takapau farm, “first as a hobby, then as more than a hobby.”

He says winemaking is “not an easy industry to work in … it’s not glamorous. It’s not what people from outside think it’s like, sitting back and tasting wine. It’s 12-14 hour days, seven days a week, covered in grapes from head to toe.” (OK, he burst my bubble!) A lot of young people leave the industry. But for Leith the hard work has paid off quickly and now it’s a matter of “producing wines that gain the respect of other winemakers.”

Most winemakers at well-known wineries in the Bay are veterans in their positions for 10-15 years. Getting to that position requires not just sensitive taste, an extensive knowledge of wines and a track record of making exceptional ones, but also a strong work ethic and good management skills.

So, the question put to this brimming-with-enthusiasm young winemaker is: How much of the quality of a bottle of wine is determined before the grapes are picked, and how much is in the hands of the winemaker?

Leith gives 70% of the credit to the grapes and 30% to the winemaker, conceding that his Dad would give 90% to the grapes! As he puts it, “The wine is made on the grape vine. The job of the winemaker is to enhance the natural flavours by treating the grapes in the right way … You can’t turn a bad grape into a good wine, but it’s pretty easy to turn a good grape into a bad wine!”

Tom Belford

Feature

COMING HOME ~ If you are or know a ‘returnee’, contact editors@baybuzz.co.nz

bits were titanium. Its price tag was $800. He whistled under his breath. Then he counted the noughts again. Good God, it was $8000!

“Nice bike,” said a voice. He jumped. A lean young man in a bright lycra shirt covered with logos looked at him doubtfully.

“Do much riding?”“Not a lot these days,” he murmured.

“Probably need something more basic really.”

The assistant nodded and took him to the far end of the shop. He stopped beside a bike with big fat knobbly tyres and a thick metal frame. It was bright red and was emblazoned with the name Crimson Sun.

“Made in China,” said the assistant. “We sell lots of them. Normally they’re $345 but it’s on special for $300.”

An hour later he wheeled his new bike self-consciously into the street. In a bag he carried a lycra shirt with an unpronounceable French racing team’s

logo on the back, lycra cycle shorts with padding in the seat like a baby’s disposal nappy, a bright red helmet, heavy duty combination bike lock, a bike pump, water bottle and both front and rear lights, batteries not included.

The next day he rode to Clive. He didn’t ride back. Luckily he had taken his cellphone. His wife found him walking like a Sumo wrestler along Farndon Road. His thighs were chafed raw. His backside numb with pain. The Crimson Sun was draped over the edge of the car’s boot. They didn’t speak on the way home.

Two weeks later he was at the parking lot by the river ahead of the others. He suffered the hoots of derision with a thin smile. His time would come. He let them ride ahead while he sorted out his multiple gear options. Then suddenly, everything clicked. Man and cycle were in perfect synchronization. Crouched over his handlebars he watched his speedometer break through the 20 and 35 km/h barriers. He swerved past his lumbering mates, showering them with a rooster-tail of limestone. Their shouts were ignored as he savoured his moment of glory. Then he looked up to see a frozen tableau of dad, mum and two small children stopped in front of him behind a wooden fence and metal gate across the trail. A sickening crash of metal and they were above --- then below him --- as he cartwheeled through the air.

“You have a visitor,” said the nurse as she closed the door behind her. He opened one eye and saw his wife framed in the vee of his upturned, plastered legs.

“I’ve sold what’s left of the bike on TradeMe for $50 and that ridiculous cycling outfit has gone to the op shop. I hope you’ve learned a lesson,” she snapped.

He tried to nod but the neckbrace stopped him. He waggled an acknowledging finger out of the plaster cast on one of his arms then lapsed back into semi-consciousness. Suddenly a vision of himself clad in black leather hurtling down the road on a big noisy Harley-Davidson swam into view.

Beneath the mummified blank exterior of his bandaged face, he allowed himself a secret smile.

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Humour

BY BRENDAN WEBB ~ He waggled an acknowledging finger out of the plaster cast on one of his arms.

He stared at the dimly lit corner of the shed. The broken outdoor umbrella lay slumped against the rusted handle of The Golden Dragon, his old rotary lawnmower whose once-fearsome roar had long since died in its corroded metal throat. Behind the dead mower was an equally dead car battery. And propped against the shed wall was the bike.

With some effort he lifted the stiff steel skeleton over the mower handle and wheeled it into the centre of the shed. The bike shuddered with rigor mortis. Its rear brake pads gripped the rusted wheel rim like a dead man’s hand. He left a black line on the shed floor as he dragged the creaking machine into the light beside the window.

The buckled front wheel gave him a painful flashback to the day a decade ago when he had swept triumphantly past his son on a downhill track in the forest park. His moment of fleeting victory over the nine-year old boy cruelly snatched away by a pine tree stump which had sent him cartwheeling initially into a bed of pine needles and branches and eventually into a hospital bed for a week.

His heart sank as he surveyed the bike. Both tyres were beyond flat, their perished treads oozing over rust-freckled rims. The handlebars were at right angles to the frame. The torn seat faced to the rear.

Unlike today’s ultra-sleek machines, his bike had only three gears – two in fact because the lowest gear had kept slipping, resulting in several crippling groin injuries.

In three weeks' time he was to join friends in a Sunday ride around one of Hawke’s Bay’s cycle trails. It had seemed a good idea at the friend’s dinner party that night after a couple of bottles of Craggy Range reds. It seemed a really bad idea now. He stared at the bike again.

He’d have more chance doing the ride on the lawnmower, he thought glumly.

Late that afternoon he gingerly pushed open the door of the bike shop. Rows of gleaming bikes stretched either side of the aisle. It puzzled him that none had mudguards. In fact they looked only partly assembled. One caught his eye. It reminded him of a racehorse waiting to burst out of the starting gates. A tag on the low-slung handlebars said it was made of carbon fibre. Apparently some of its metal

Riding the trailBrendan Webb, in his mind.

Photo courtesy of Tãkaro Trails

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