A damn load of emotional effluent

Here are some examples. Serial anti-RWSS crusader Grenville Christie claims riparian planting stops only phosphate from entering the waterways (CHB Mail Sept 20). Incorrect. It stops virtually everything except nitrogen.

Filtering improves water quality, in some cases by up to 80% within a few months. Nitrogen enters the rivers via groundwater, so riparian planting is ineffective. But nitrogen will be severely limited by Plan Change 6, so Grenville can rest easy.

Greenpeace claims the dam will destroy rivers (‘Dodgy dam will destroy rivers’ says a blog on its website by G. Toop, June 24, 2016 ). When I phoned Ms Toop to enquire which rivers the dam would destroy – the Tukipo? the Papanui? the Waipawa? – she didn’t have a clue. When I suggested Plan Change 6 would improve the rivers, she said she had never heard of it.

Greenpeace has campaigned ceaselessly against the dam on the grounds that it would inevitably lead to intensive dairying and more pollution. To say that the dam would inevitably have that effect is like saying that anyone who owns an axe will inevitably become an axe murderer. It is nonsense.

Greenpeace, once a standard bearer for integrity, now resembles the bogeymen they oppose.

Cabinet minister Peter Dunne says it is a fact that the dam is widely rejected locally and will inflict significant environmental damage (Baybuzz magazine, June 20, 2016). I phoned his office and asked for evidence but, like Greenpeace, he could provide none. Dunne’s spokesman said he thought the article was based on information from someone in Canterbury, but he wasn’t sure.

On the contrary, Dr John Hayes, Cawthron Institute, has published research on improving water quality. Southland Fish and Game manager Zane Moss says it is “outstanding in an international context” and will have global significance. Hayes concludes, “In New Zealand, regional councils may need to revise upwards minimum flows and water allocation limits downward” (NZ Farmer, June 27, 2016). That is exactly what the dam scheme proposes.

A recent survey in Central Hawkes Bay showed 72% of urban respondents were keen on the dam (Crowd Count, Sept 2,3, 2016), and 400 people attended a pro-dam rally in Waipawa last November.

Meanwhile, only seven people had attended a council annual plan meeting two months earlier, clearly indicating widespread support for the dam – and widespread indifference towards politics. And that is informed comment unswayed by three years of biased speculation.

These people recognise that irrigating 25,000ha responsibly will revitalise and benefit the whole region as it has done in Canterbury. They agree with Waitaki district mayor Gary Kircher who said, “Waitaki district is buzzing as irrigation plays its part in driving business opportunities…. There are plenty of knockers... but we are going places largely due to irrigation” (Irrigation NZ News, winter 2016).

There is general agreement that climate change and environmental misuse means water is the new ‘gold’. Yet Mike Williams, a high profile Aucklander and former president of the NZ Labour Party, writes that the dam is, “a massive gamble with ratepayers’ money” (HB Today, Sept 3, 2016). He goes on, “I will be rattling many cages in this election.”

Ill-informed rubbish. It would be an investment yielding 6.5% per annum and after 70 years the community would own a $370 million asset. A review of the project by Deloitte (HBRC minutes, July 8 2016) gave it the thumbs-up. What does Williams know about the dam that we don’t and when will he share that information with the public?

Anyone can act like Winston Peters and fire a machine-gun from an armchair. Not one of these critics has come up with a better idea. Lucerne and onfarm storage have been suggested. Lucerne is hardy but it needs water; building dams where little rain falls is like running a pub with no beer. The anti-dam lobby is an example of massive, unremitting one-sided spin, almost complete devoid of factual backing.

There is a strong likelihood the dam will be kyboshed by the incoming HBRC councillors after the elections on October 8. If so I wonder whether in a decade or so, when global warming has really kicked in and all our Hawkes Bay mokopuna are trekking off to Melbourne or Europe, how these knockers will feel.

I suspect they won’t care. They will be watching Real Housewives of Auckland and oiling their guns, getting ready to ping off the next inspired idealist who pops up with an idea that might help the bank balance, the planet and the children of the future.

• Tim Gilbertson was chairman of Waipukurau Federated Farmers, mayor of Central Hawkes Bay and a member of Hawkes Bay Regional Council. He is standing again for the HBRC.