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Whangarei local government meeting

2 February 2005

Questions/issues raised

  • What are the national motives?
  • How do you set water allocations?
  • How do you decide water uses?
  • How long do you allocate consents? What is fair? - existing versus new users.
  • Is water quality declining?
  • Storm water quality in urban areas is an issue.
  • There are issues with funding and research.
  • There is a lack of support for community programs.
  • National standards would need an adaptation to the regional situation.
  • Is it a national or a regional issue?
  • Would need integration of existing plans into any new regime.
  • Who's providing national biosecurity?
  • How effective is this in areas where water allocation is not an issue?
  • Need certainty of water allocation.
  • Need better strategic planning at all level.
  • Who drives setting and funding standards?
  • Need better public awareness - Australia have done some work on this, focusing on water conservation strategies.
  • Great work but possibly too late - should have had guidance from the instigation of the Resource Management Act.
  • Point source discharges are leading to the continued degradation of Northland's waterways.
  • Need integrated catchment management.
  • Manuals, guidance, technical education is available - issue is with enacting.
  • There is high turnover of farm/land and ownership in Northland - lack of capital investment.
  • National Environmental Standards is something usable across New Zealand - based on regional inconsistencies/differences.
  • Integration of State of the Environment monitoring with regional/industrial/other agency reporting.
  • What's going to happen to all the operative regional plans?
  • Identification of projects/programmes underway.
  • Background papers support the discussion document, but what about other options?
  • Looks like over allocation on paper, but this is not normally the case.
  • Water quality is the biggest issue in Northland.
  • Prioritisation of water bodies - national vs. regional vs. catchment.
  • Higher value/nationally significant waterbodies win.
  • Challenge of reaching people to consult adequately, eg, Māori, wider community.
  • Allocation
    • Needs to be fair
    • How do you get an allocation process?
    • Need certainty
    • Need strategic planning - identification/research and consultation
  • Water Quality
    • Storm water needs to be addressed
    • Need a code of practice for non-point source discharges
    • Need national and regional standards and solutions
  • Monitoring and Evaluation
    • Needs to be early and focused
  • Information Transfer
    • Need information leading to behaviour change
    • Use overseas experience
    • Identify target audiences and use different approaches
    • Industry needs information
  • Research and Funding
    • Needs to be accessible
    • Needs to be coordinated
    • Need to know about abstraction effects on biodiversity
    • Need to look at existing plans - are they consistent, is there commonality? If so, national direction may not be needed.
    • Need to look at synergies

Solutions

  • Should be catchment focused - riparian management is a quick fix solution for rivers.
  • Continuation/consistency of funding.
  • Use Long Term Community Council Planning process to prioritise/identify/monitor water of regional significance.
  • More money for investigations to develop data to convince people of need for change and what can be done.
  • Review the work that has been done and what's lacking.
  • Need practical guidelines on how to implement the information that is known - communicate science in lay person's language so that change is achieved.
  • Pilot trials for models of land use impacts.
  • Changes must be affordable for Regional Councils or financial assistance provided.
  • Provide template for Regional Councils so they can balance economy/environment/cultural/social - capability issue.
  • Much more complete background work, discussion and consultation on identification of Water bodies of national importance eg, Ngawha Springs data is incorrect in Technical Working Paper.
  • Need an alternative to first come, first served.
  • Need national coordination of:
    • Research
    • Standard approach
    • Best practise
    • Funding/resourcing
  • Need regionally based pilot projects.
  • Need allocation catchment modelling and awareness.

Last updated: 25 November 2008