Aotearoa Water Action (AWA) continues to push forward with its campaign to protect our human right to clean, abundant and affordable water, and to exercise community and national sovereignty over our most precious of resources.

Belfast

We had a High Court hearing in December 2019 to determine whether Environment Canterbury (ECan) acted lawfully in granting consents to take up to 24 million litres per day of Christchurch's best water to two water mining companies. The proceedings have not been diverted by Cloud Ocean's announcement that it is "mothballing" its site due to weak seasonal demand and economic conditions in China. The company, which has a history of non-compliance with labour, health and safety and environmental requirements at its Belfast plant, continues to sell our water in China at knock-down prices, and recently was invited to be part of a major New Zealand trade delegation to Shanghai.

Local runaka Ngai Tuahuriri applied to the Court to be heard in AWA's proceedings, citing inadequate consultation and a failure on ECan's part to properly take into account its rights and obligations as mana whenua, including the exercise of kaitiakitanga. That application is opposed by the water mining companies, and was considered prior to the main hearing.

AWA supports the principle that Maori cultural and other rights must be heard and respected in any decisions on the taking of water for export bottling. The exporting of aquifer water was strongly opposed on cultural grounds by Ngati Awa iwi in the recent Environment Court hearing on the application by Chinese-owned Cresswell NZ Limited to take water from the Otakiri Springs aquifer near Whakatane. The Court's decision on that matter is expected shortly, and its decision on the issue of Maori cultural interests and obligations is awaited with interest.

This was written before the December 2019 High Court hearing, the outcome of which is unknown at publication time. Ed.

Other Campaigns

AWA continues to support other campaigns in Aotearoa to oppose the water mining industry, or which otherwise threaten community rights to water.

Otakiri Springs. We are waiting on a decision out of the Environment Court.

Murupara. Local iwi Ngati Manawa has now decided not to proceed with the proposed water bottling plant. The runanga have said that loss of sovereignty over the wai - the inability to retain control over the water permits - played a large part in the decision not to proceed. A wise and forward-looking decision in AWA's view.

Upper Hutt. Residents recently became aware that a non-notified consent had been granted by the Greater Wellington Regional Council to Tauranga-based Heretaunga Water Limited, to take hundreds of millions of litres per year from aquifers feeding the depleted and often heavily polluted Hutt River. A petition to the Regional Council to revoke the consent has attracted thousands of signatures and has been supported by many local Councils concerned at the threat to community water security.

It should be noted that these actions are probably only a representative sample of many consents being actively sought and granted, often without public involvement or even awareness.

Policy

AWA has generated considerable publicity recently by highlighting the fact that the Resource Management Act (RMA) in fact allows Regional Councils to allocate water preferentially between different types of activity. Councils and the Government have consistently pushed the line that their "hands are tied" by the RMA in terms of taking meaningful, practical steps to prevent or impede water mining, an activity seen by most New Zealanders as culturally offensive and dangerous. AWA's position is that this is not the case, and Councils already have the tools at their disposal if they wish to curtail the growth of the industry. The fact they choose not to do so, in AWA's view speaks more of the existing economic paradigm they uphold, than it does of the powers at their disposal.

Co-Convenors Niki Gladding and Peter Richardson have been invited to speak at the National Freshwater Conference to be held in Wellington in February 2020. We will be arguing against market-based models, and charging models, as solutions to the allocation issue. In AWA's view the preferable model would allocate water in terms of a hierarchy of best uses, beginning with environmental and community uses, and with exploitative and unsustainable uses such as export water bottling coming last. Such a model would achieve the cultural expectations of most New Zealanders, and best serve the need to safeguard the resource for our future generations.

Government Procrastinates

Meanwhile the Government continues to kick the can down the road on the allocation issue, citing self-serving issues of Maori interests in water, while making little or no effort to address that issue, and while continuing to promote water charging as its preferred response to water mining. In AWA's view charging for large-scale water bottling extractions will only incentivise this unsustainable and culturally offensive practice by creating fresh income streams for Councils and/or the Government.

AWA submitted on the proposed Plan Change 7 to the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan, arguing for much tougher nitrate emission levels from the Waimakariri sub-zone, and against other proposals to facilitate continuing dairy farming operations at existing levels. We welcomed with some caution the announcement of the new proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPSFM) which seeks to impose much more direction on Regional Council planning documents to address water quality management. Unfortunately, the proposed NPSFM does not adequately address quantity (minimum flow rate etc) issues, or allocation.

AWA would like to thank and acknowledge CAFCA for its support in our campaigns. We share a very similar kaupapa albeit AWA's is more narrowly focussed on the water issue. Many lines intersect on the water debate - resource security, sovereignty and the prevailing, destructive economic paradigm of endless growth for the benefit of the few.