Great News From Our President
Some fantastic news!
ECAN today approved our application for a consent to continue drawing water from our existing well on the Donaldson property (which is across Rippingale Road from the golf course) for the next 19 years.
Key terms of the consent are that we can draw up to 120m3 per day, at a pump rate of 5litres/sec and a maximum annual usage of 10,000m3 per annum.
This means that our existing irrigation regime can be continued, which is amazing … and a huge relief!
Some of you will be thinking “why then did we have to spend so much money and effort unsuccessfully drilling on our course to find a new water source”. The short answer is that our existing bore has been non-compliant, in many aspects, for many years and we could not have won a technical or legal battle to gain a consent. Hence we tried to locate water on our own property which would have been by far the best solution … had it been successful.
Over recent months, ECAN staff have been very emphathetic to us. They now fully understand the criticality of irrigation to our course, our “community good” as a local facility and tourism product, and they respected that we had tried every possible avenue to find new water, without success.
The consent places some restrictions to our historical daily water usage, but we are fine with those and so our irrigation regime will largely proceed as in the past.
I wish to acknowledge the following people who helped us greatly on the journey to secure our water.
Dylan Marriott, Principal Consents Planner at ECAN. Dylan threw us the lifeline to re-look at the continued use of our existing bore. He helped significantly with technical data and with our consent application.
Mark and Candyce Donaldson – for granting us continuing access to their land.
Graham Abbot, former GM of Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa - for his historical knowledge of water in the area, his contacts and his sound advice. Also to Neil Wilson, formerly Engineering Manager at the Pools, for his technical knowledge.
Hamish Dobbie, CE of Hurunui District Council for his strong support for our case for water access and his excellent advice.
Brian Mustchin, our Life Member, for his historical knowledge and guidance.
Mainland Foundation for substantial funding of our drilling operations.
Ngati Kuri for supporting our consent application.
If you know, or meet, any of these people please acknowledge their valuable assistance.
I thank our committee and staff, for diligently and patiently working through the various options to find water.
In particular, thanks to David O’Brien for his advice and for editing of the various editions of the consent application and related correspondence. And thanks to Steve and Neil for their technical advice, historical knowledge and their irrigation expertise.
Our consent will run until 1 Jan 2045 and will ensure almost two decades of water to keep our course in the amazing condition that it has always been in.
For clarification, we will only ever be able to water the tees and greens, never the whole course, but that intention was never envisaged anyway.
The Committee has agreed to leave the very low-yielding well on hole 13 uncapped, for an unlikely emergency. We will shroud the well- head with more plantings.
This consent outcome sure is great news and fortunately with a minimum drain on our Club funds.
Happy days!
Kind regards
Graham
… on behalf of the Committee
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