Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee focuses on sensitive lake zones

The Selwyn-Waihora Zone Committee will meet at 1pm on Tuesday, 1 September, at the Selwyn District Council offices for its regular monthly water management meeting.

Environment Canterbury’s presentation on Farm Environment Plans within the Sensitive Lake Zones will be a key focus of the meeting. The Land and Water Regional Plan identifies 25 high country sensitive lake zones throughout the region, and eight of these lakes in the Selwyn-Waihora Zone.

A land-use consent is now required to continue farming within these sensitive lake catchments and a Farm Environment Plan and nitrogen baseline to be submitted as part of the resource consent.

Environment Canterbury has been working on a pilot project with local farmers to develop Farm Environment Plans and nitrogen baselines to get a better understanding of the information required as part of a resource consent application.

At the meeting the committee will receive two further presentations from Environment Canterbury, the first of which is on its 2015 Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) Targets Report. The report measures the progress of how the community’s aspirations for water management are being delivered across the region.

The second report will be on water quality monitoring and cultural values in the Kaituna River. The committee identified the Kaituna River as having significant cultural value in its Zone Implementation Programme (ZIP) and set allocation limits and minimum flows for it in its ZIP Addendum to help improve ecological flows.

The committee will finish the meeting with a report on the impact of environmental limits on land purchasing and investment from Colliers Real Estate.

The Selwyn - Waihora Zone Committee is a joint committee of the Christchurch City and Selwyn District councils, and Environment Canterbury. Meetings are typically held monthly on a Tuesday and members of the public are welcome to attend and contribute.

ENDS

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