The Hurunui Water Project (HWP) plans to build a 75-metre high dam in the south branch of the Hurunui River, creating a 7km-long lake, with about 525ha of the Hurunui's pristine south branch being inundated papers filed with Environment Canterbury show.
Together with a 2nd dam at the outlet of lake Sumner that would raise Lake Sumner's level by up to 3.2m, an extra 138 million cubic metres of water would be stored for irrigation.
Under the plan, up to 32 cubic metres per second of water will be diverted from the Hurunui River into an intake and canal system for irrigation and hydro-power generation.
Dairying now occupies 9 per cent of HWP's irrigable area, but 45 per cent of the land is expected to convert to dairy if the irrigation plan is approved.
Environmentalists are outraged, especially because of a proposed water-conservation order for the Hurunui River. Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the project "will effectively privatise what is a public resource, which is a wild river, and using the water to carry out a huge dairy conversion in Canterbury".
"The implications are that we will lose one of the last wild rivers," he said.
Despite the massive implications to fishing, kayaking and wildlife, the area will be transformed from a nationally significant, pristine, backcountry resource to an 'irrigation scheme' with roadways and infrastructure that will sour the natural heritage of the park forever.
Please join us in a public demonstration of our concern at the Bridge of Remembrance on Cashel St, 12.15pm16 October.
We will walk alongside the Avon to Victoria Square. Your support will help us convey to the authorities, here and in Wellington, the importance of this issue to the people of Canterbury.