HELEN MURDOCH

Property owners within the proposed Lee Dam rating area will be required to pay about $420 to $520 per hectare annually to cover the cost of the dam, whether they use irrigation or not.

However, affected landowners will be able to sell the available water, but not the water right, to adjoining permitted water users.

The liability for the dam’s cost would be tied to each affected property until the dam’s costs were covered.

The finer details of how the proposed $42 million dam would be paid for were revealed during a full Tasman District Council meeting yesterday.

Mayor Richard Kempthorne acknowledged the cost could see some people move from the dam’s rating area, which covers about 4900ha of the Waimea Plains.

There would also be a small increase in water charges for urban water users.

Acting chief executive Dennis Bush-King said if the dam did not go ahead, permitted water allocations across the plains would be cut by about 70 per cent.

Mr Bush-King said rating for the dam’s cost would continue until the project was paid for. The exact duration of the debt was at this stage unknown.

Updated costings on the dam had yet to be finalised and the final terms of the loan would impact on its length.

He said the Waimea Water Augmentation Committee and the council were looking at funding options outside the region to help cover some of the cost, including tapping into the Government’s Irrigation Acceleration Fund.

“Our expectation is to get the charge to landowners as low as possible,” he said.

Mr Kempthorne said he did not want to see people forced to move from the plains because of the dam’s cost, but there was no simple answer to the current unsustainable over-allocation of the basin’s natural water resource.

Mr Bush-King said if the public, through the council’s draft long-term plan consultation, give the dam the thumbs-down the next option was to review and cut water allocations.

Outside the meeting, Mr Bush-King said there was a cost of building the dam and a higher cost of not building it in lost production and potential.

The need for the dam was driven by the current over-allocation of the underground aquifer, the overuse of which drains the lower reaches of the Appleby River in times of drought, and the desire to have a sustainable water supply for future increased horticultural production.

“If we do proceed, there will be cost implications, but people will be reaping the benefit of the extra water.”

Mr Bush-King said the council’s draft long-term plan would be open to public submissions from the end of next month.