MEDIA RELEASE

Water demand highlights urgent need for research

For immediate release: Tuesday 13 February 2007

A growing demand for water in the Bay of Plenty has highlighted an urgent need for research into the region’s groundwater supply.

Water use has increased rapidly in the region over the past five years, putting further pressure on groundwater resources.

“It’s a huge issue, both regionally and nationally, and will get even bigger in the future,” says Jim Pringle, chairman of the regional council’s regulation, monitoring and investigation committee. “We have to get smarter about the way we allocate groundwater in particular, and we need to increase our knowledge about the region’s groundwater aquifers and the state they are in. The demand for water has been moving faster than our policies and research.”

Mr Pringle says water users must work with the council to look after the region’s water. “We will all be losers if we neglect or damage this precious resource”.

Environment Bay of Plenty has just completed a review of five years of resource consents for groundwater use. The results were presented to Environment Bay of Plenty’s regulation, monitoring and investigations committee on Thursday 8 February.

The review showed a distinct shift from surface water to groundwater use, mainly by the farming and horticultural communities. The council’s manager of consents and compliance, Andy Bruere, says over the past five years a lot more land has been planted in kiwifruit, which require water for frost protection and irrigation. “We only have so much water in our region’s rivers, and many are already fully allocated, so more people are looking to groundwater for their supplies. We have had a surge in the number of consent applications for groundwater.”

However, the council does not yet know enough about some of the region’s groundwater aquifers to be confident when allocating some water requested in consent applications. “It’s less complicated to monitor the level of rivers than to know what’s going on underground,” he explains.

Environment Bay of Plenty has already started a five-year programme of intensive groundwater research. The programme is “absolutely necessary” to ensure the resource is used sustainably, Mr Bruere says. The results of the study will help the council understand the extent of groundwater aquifers and the volume of water that can be sustainably taken from them.

ENDS

© Scoop Media