Friday, March 29, 2024

Fences mended over Limestone Downs conversion

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Waikato Regional Council has produced a detailed and reflective response to an allegation that frustrating consent delays, followed by bad weather, added more than $1 million to the cost of the big Limestone Downs dairy conversion.
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After reviewing its own records and meeting further with Limestone Downs, Waikato Regional Council (WRC) suggested a follow-up to coverage of the allegation.

WRC director of resource use, Chris McLay, said there were some useful lessons and these should be publicised for the benefit of other landowners embarking on dairy conversions.

The 2500ha effective C Alma Baker Trust-owned Limestone Downs, on the Tasman Sea coast near Port Waikato, will hold its annual public field day on Tuesday, February 17.

WRC councillors and senior managers intend to be there and the conversion experiences are expected to be discussed.

Farmers will be able to see the 425ha, 800-cow dairy unit after 20 months of milking and hear the independent environmental monitoring results.

McLay said since his involvement he understood Limestone Downs had shown a high level of compliance and professionalism.

“The council acknowledges the quality of infrastructure that has been established to deal with dairy effluent, among other aspects of the development,” he said.

“We have found the trust to be thoroughly professional in its dealings with us and that we have confidence in the ability of its staff to manage their responsibilities.”

Both parties now want to use this experience to improve outcomes for future conversions.

The main point WRC wanted emphasised was the need to begin consultation over a dairy conversion as early as possible before consent applications and the planned start of work.

WRC land management officer Colin Ferguson has the job of making initial contact, and scoping the needs and timetable.

“Sometimes we hear of a planned development through the grapevine and especially since the passing of Variation 6 to the regional plan we want to remind the landowners that they may need consent for water,” McLay said.

Any herd of more than about 200 cows could need consent for water for dairy washdown and milk cooling, whereas the average size of recent conversions in Waikato has been 500 to 800 cows.

In the case of Limestone Downs, the trust wanted to do a big conversion in a west coast location some distance from existing dairy farms and draw water from small, short streams running to the sea.

Those streams had not been monitored before and the requirement that each spring must be left with 70% of “low flow” proved to be a major issue.

“From our perspective regarding lessons learned, we would comment that this dairy conversion was a large project on a tight timeframe,” McLay said.

“Also, the complexities of implementing the Resource Management Act (RMA) and rules are increasing in some areas, especially regarding water takes.

“In hindsight, both the council and the trust may have benefited from the establishment and communication of a more comprehensive draft project plan to identify all key aspects, constraints and likely risks to the RMA consenting process at an earlier stage.

“However, we acknowledge now that the trust was proactive in seeking to identify and fulfil its obligations under the RMA.

“A review of events has established that the trust did discuss the project with officers of both the regional council and Waikato District Council, including site visits, well before a decision was made to proceed.

“The regional council acknowledges that its statement to the Dairy Exporter last March suggested otherwise,” McLay said.

Limestone Downs farm supervisor Kevin Lowe, an experienced farm consultant in the Auckland-Waikato region, said he was keen to ensure regional and district councils harmonised their requirements of land-owners and developers.

“They must have a clear protocol on the validity of consents issued by one council for the other,” he said.

McLay said the WRC had definitely taken on board the need to find ways of working more cohesively with district councils over large projects.

Lowe also suggested a customer satisfaction survey might highlight the odd individual among council staff and delegated contractors who wanted to assert their authority.

McLay said WRC already employed an independent survey firm for that purpose.

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