It’s to build a medium-sized community water storage reservoir on land near Whanawhana to provide increased water security for Heretaunga. The reservoir would take peak flow water during winter to store for release into rivers and the aquifer during summer, when water extraction places pressure on rivers, streams and groundwater.

Heretaunga depends on secure freshwater – for our cities and towns, our homes, our industry, and our primary production-based economy. But our demand for freshwater is increasing and our access to available water supply is becoming less reliable as our climate changes.

The Heretaunga Water Storage Project would supplement flows in the Ngaruroro River and Heretaunga’s lowland streams to offset the impacts of groundwater extraction during periods of peak demand.

The storage facility would provide more freshwater when most needed to supplement the natural environment, support our growing towns and cities, and to protect productivity across the soils of the Heretaunga plains. While the scheme would support growth and enhance environmental protections, it is essentially a water security insurance scheme.

Cyclone Gabrielle taught the people of Hawke’s Bay a lesson around the importance of social and economic resilience. The impacts on our region, our economy, and the wellbeing of our people of a serious drought could be comparable in terms of financial impacts.

Responsible water storage projects are an increasingly important part of protecting economies, communities, and our environment from the impacts of climate change. Water storage is an important climate adaptation tool to support the Heretaunga region manage future uncertainty.

Where water storage facilities meet strong commercial, environmental, and cultural criteria, developing the right facilities in the right locations and at the right scale is a very valuable option.

It’s too early to say and there are many variables. But rough, early indications are that it would cost more than $200 million to develop.

Water storage is expensive to develop, but the future of our region is dependent on secure freshwater. The facility would serve Heretaunga for generations. The total amount is large, but small in comparison to the costs of water insecurity and reversion to lower value land uses.

A serious, sustained drought, for example, could cost the region much more than the overall total development cost of the water storage scheme.

The proposed reservoir would store 27 million cubic metres (mm3) of water. That’s 27 billion litres of freshwater. By way of a comparison, the recently completed Waimea Dam in Nelson stores 13 mm3.

The proposed Heretaunga project would be a medium-sized community water storage facility. 

A principle underpinning the proposal is that the water user – the ultimate beneficiary of water security – pays. This would see major water users – irrigators and industrial / commercial users – funding its development.

However, there are also public and commercial beneficiaries of this project as the Heretaunga Plains and the groundwater beneath them also supply municipal users.

This could see stored water supporting future urban development, for example. 

The reservoir would be developed on a small tributory off the Ngaruroro River. Natural flows from across the catchment are estimated to provide approximately 17 million cubic metres of the total water stored – more than half of the reservoir’s capacity – with the remainder coming from peak winter river flows in the Ngaruroro River. As with all projects of this nature, stream and river flows will be retained at levels that ensure the freshwater ecosystem is supported throughout the seasons.

The proposed facility is downstream and outside the area of the Ngaruroro River covered by the Water Conservation Order.

The scheme is designed to harvest winter peak flows for release in summer, benefiting the health of the lower Ngaururoro River. There would be no impact on the upper reaches.

Even if the WCO did later apply to the lower reaches of the river, we are confident this scheme would be able to operate within this context.

On the contrary. A major rationale for this project is to protect the natural environment. The region’s lowland streams, rivers, and the Heretaunga aquifer are under pressure in the summer months. Releasing stored water back into the rivers and aquifers in summer offsets the pressure of water abstraction and will help deliver improved environmental outcomes.

No. The goal here is to strike a balance: deliver secure water that the region needs in a way that minimises environmental impacts and returns more water back into the catchment to offset water takes.

Our region’s economic sustainability relies upon our primary sector. Reliable access to freshwater underpins high value land use that supports jobs, communities and the region’s economy.

Ensuring we are economically and environmentally sustainable is the balance we are striking for the region’s future.

Not at all. They are separate and address different needs. The Heretaunga proposal is to augment water supplies across the Heretaunga Plains with a local storage facility from within the Heretaunga catchment and to deliver improved environmental outcomes on the lower reaches of the Ngaruroro River and Heretaunga’s lowland streams.

We have moved into a full feasibility phase on the proposal.

Pre-feasibility assessments have indicated that the site is suitable and likely to be viable.

We are now undertaking a rigorous assessment to clearly determine technical and commercial viability. Only at that point, with a favourable feasibility assessment, would we consider moving into resource consenting.

It’s too soon to say. We need to complete the feasibility phase before we can consider next steps.

To be clear, safety is an absolute pre-requisite that will be thoroughly explored in technical feasibility.

Yes, the landowners support the feasibility assessment phase.