Month Left to Provide Otaika Water Use Details

More than 140 landowners in Whangarei’s Otaika catchment have provided details of their water use as part of a pilot local authority programme designed to ensure the region’s water resources aren’t over-allocated in future.

With a month left until a Friday 18 February deadline for landowners to return a questionnaire on their water use, the Northland Regional Council (NRC) is pleased with the response to date and is encouraging those yet to return their questionnaires to do so.

Emily Walker, the NRC’s Water Allocation Officer, says Regional Council rules allow people to take “reasonable” amounts of water each day for domestic, stock and other uses as a ‘permitted take’. (This means resource consent isn’t needed provided certain criteria are met.)

However, the Regional Council needs to know – and record – the combined impact that both permitted takes and those allowed under resource consents are having on Northland’s water resources; its rivers, streams and lakes and groundwater.

Ms Walker says one of the main drivers behind the proposal is to make sure there’s enough water available in future to ensure those already getting it as a permitted take can continue to do so.

To that end, the NRC had sent out about 650 questionnaires to people living in the Otaika catchment late last year asking them where they get their water from (including those on town supply), how much they take in an average day and what they do with it.

The Otaika catchment was chosen as a pilot for the Council’s ‘Sustainable Water Allocation Project’ project because it is both relatively small – with only several hundred landowners - but also boasts a good mix of uses from domestic to horticulture and farming.

“We really appreciate those who have responded already and would like to encourage others who have received a questionnaire to do so by February 18.”

Similarly, Ms Walker says she is keen to hear from any people in the Otaika Catchment who had not received a questionnaire in the mail.

She says it’s important for the Regional Council to have the most accurate picture possible about how much is actually being drawn from surface water (rivers, streams and lakes) and groundwater via wells and bores.

“Otherwise, there’s a risk that the Regional Council could unknowingly allocate water to someone that’s effectively already being used by other people.”

Information supplied by those responding to the questionnaires will be processed at no cost to the landowner and used by the NRC to estimate how much surface and groundwater is being used in the area.

Ms Walker says while the information provided to date has yet to be analysed in detail, preliminary results are in line with what Council staff had expected in terms of the types of uses the water is being put to.

She says once the NRC has refined its permitted takes registration system using the Otaika data, it hopes to begin registering the thousands of other permitted takes in Northland over the next several years.

Rules governing permitted takes are covered in Part Five of the Regional Water and Soil Plan and can be viewed on the Council’s website via: www.nrc.govt.nz/rwsp

ENDS

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