Posted: 02 July 2007
Consents granted for Awanui flood scheme
Independent Commissioners have granted eight resource consents designed to allow the Northland Regional Council to restore, manage and maintain one of the region’s biggest flood management schemes.
The Regional Council took over the century-old Awanui River Flood Management Scheme from the Far North District Council two years ago, with the NRC’s Land Operations Department applying soon after for a number of consents linked to it. The scheme is designed to help protect Kaitaia and surrounding farmland from flooding.
The Council’s applications attracted 22 submissions in support, 15 opposed and three neutral.
The matter was heard in late May in Kaitaia by Independent Commissioners Rob van Voorthuysen and Fraser Campbell because the Regional Council was both the applicant and consent authority.
The Commissioners delivered their decision recently, granting the Regional Council eight consents. They are;
• Four land use consents allowing the Council to carry out work to restore and maintain stopbanks, floodgates and culverts and extract gravel and sediment
• Three discharge permits allowing it to discharge sediments created - and herbicides used - during the work, as well as floodwater from the scheme
• A water permit to divert and dam floodwaters within the scheme’s “stop banks, control banks, canals, drains, floodgates and spillways”.
The consents are valid for 35 years and are subject to a raft of conditions, including a requirement that the Regional Council must by the end of September this year have established an Awanui Flood Management Scheme Liaison Committee.
The Committee must be at least seven-strong and include representatives from the FNDC’s Northern Community Board, the Kaitaia Drainage District Committee, upper, middle and lower scheme catchment rural landowners, the Department of Conservation and the Regional Council’s regulatory arm.
The Committee has to meet at least twice a year – June and October - in meetings open to the public. The June meeting must discuss the annual programme of works the Regional Council is proposing and the October meeting, the Annual Report prepared for the scheme’s activities in the previous financial year.
Another condition requires the Regional Council to monitor the ongoing risk of slumping at Bells Hill and “the potential resultant blockage of the Awanui River”.
The Commissioners’ decisions are open to appeal for 15 working days.