Local president Jamie Falloon says the federation is one of 19 stakeholders in the group working with Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) to further the project. The proposal is to irrigate 60,000ha.
A study of the viability of such a scheme by consulting engineers Tonkin Taylor has presented nine options for dam sites. They include two south of Martinborough and seven north of Masterton, near the settlement of Mauriceville
Falloon says he’s pleased with GWRC’s running of the project and getting stakeholders involved early rather than keeping the process secret. He says such a scheme could have huge benefits for the region, hence their support.
“But we understand this has impacts on people and their properties and all we can do is to encourage them to remain in the process. That’s the way they can be heard and understand a lot better what the impacts are from the different dam sites.
“We’ve got members whose land could be affected. We just hope the process works well with those people so they really understand what the implications are and the opportunity comes to a solution because the project will benefit the whole community.”
GWRC chairwoman Fran Wilde says an irrigation scheme would be ‘transformational’ for Wairarapa and the greater Wellington region. She says the irrigation scheme will not solve all of Wairarapa’s drought problems, given that much of the region is steep hill country.
Wilde says she’s been looking at Canterbury and says while there is significant dairying in that region, there are other major users of irrigation who are growing crops, general arable farming and export seeds. She says these same possibilities arise in the Wairarapa. Environmental groups are also involved in the project and are part of the governance group, Wilde adds.
“They understand that we are putting a lot of science into our water investigations on this project. There will be strict rules on the users of this water. We won’t be tolerating any environmental misbehavior. We’ll expect people to do the right thing and there are many farmers here who are doing the right thing – know it can be done – they just have to make that commitment.”
