The first independent review since Te Waikoropupū Springs Water Conservation Order came into force commenced with a review visit mid- July to the catchment and key monitoring sites.

Murray Close, a Senior Science Leader at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), has been engaged to conduct the review.

Mr. Close, a pioneer of research into groundwater contamination over the last 44 years, has led multi-agency, multi-disciplinary research teams. His research focused on the transport and fate of contaminants in NZ groundwater systems and supported the development of new investigatory methods for the area above the water table referred as the vadose zone.

“My purpose is to carry out an independent review of the monitoring associated with Te Waikoropupū Springs,” said Mr. Close.

“This first week into the review was structured so that I would get a good understanding of the catchment, knowledge of the key monitoring sites, and to meet with the key groups and people involved with the Water Conservation Order (WCO) for the Te Waikoropupū Springs (TWS).

“A focus of my work is the Court’s request for an early warning system to detect changes in the Springs water quality. This would mean monitoring up-gradient water that is moving into the springs and could give us timely warning of changes in quality to accommodate early warning of any water quality changes up-gradient so to allow for effective remedial action.

“This first week of the review process has proved invaluable. I travelled around the catchment and now have increased understanding of the complexity of the Spring’s different hydrogeological elements such as the limestone, mudstone, marble, and gravels through which the water from various parts of the catchment can flow.

“Meeting residents, a lot of whom have been either living in the catchment area for a long time or have been involved with the catchment and in the process of the water conservation order, was a great opportunity to hear firsthand their views.

“Next steps include a review of relevant evidence and reports presented at the hearings. I will be wanting to talk with more people associated with the catchment to progress my review of the present monitoring and recommendations for the future.

“Early October I plan to have a draft of the review for feedback with the final report and recommendations published in December.”

Mr. Close was accompanied by Joseph Thomas Senior Resource Scientist - Water & Special Projects and met with:

Monday 8 July 
Leonie Rae (TDC CEO), Rob Smith (acting Group Manager Information, Science & Technology), John Ridd (Group Manager Service & Strategy), and Mirka Langford (Team Lead Soils and Land Use). Councillor Kit Maling who had attended most of the TWS WCO hearings, Kat Bunting who is the catchment facilitator for the Tākaka catchment, Lisa McGlinchey (planner involved with TWS), Trevor James who works on the surface water quality issues and John Bullock who works with the TDC communication team.

Tuesday 9 July
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent travelling around the catchment looking at monitoring sites, locations of interest, and discussing the geology, likely flow paths and site-specific issues at each location.
We started at the top of the catchment going up the Tākaka River past the Harwood's recorder site and then coming back along the eastern side of the valley, after stopping at Lindsays Bridge. We inspected the Spittals Spring site and noted a number of streams coming down from the eastern side of the valley. We crossed the Tākaka River and visited existing monitoring sites such as Sowman, Bennett, Jefferson, and Savage. We also visited some springs that emerge in the middle of farmland and walked upstream from Paines Ford to some springs that emerge about 600 m upstream of Paines Ford bridge.

Wednesday 10 July
We continued travelling round the catchment focusing on the western and northern portions, including the Anatoki and the Motupipi rivers. In the TWS area we visited the Main Springs monitoring site as well as the Fish Springs sites that are used by TDC and Friends of Golden Bay (FOGB).

Thursday 11 July
Thursday and Friday were mainly focused on meeting people, but we also visited some areas in the lower catchment that had not been covered earlier.

Meeting with FOGB: I met with Gordon Mather and Andrew Yuill for an hour at the TDC Tākaka office. We discussed their monitoring results and various issues, and I outlined the scope of my review.

Meeting with farmers: We met with a group of farmers who farm on the recharge area for the TWS at Cherrie Chubb’s place. Present were Cherrie and Robert Chubb, Tony Riley, Hamish Hill, Graham Ball, and David Scotland. Sally Ann Neal joined via Teams. The discussion lasted about 1.5 hours and raised some good issues such as management of sinkholes, variability of climate, knowledge gaps and the need to understand lag times for leaching from the valley floor. They also provided information about the prohibitive costs of drilling into the marble aquifer and discussed the radiometric surveys that they have asked Clint Rissmann to conduct to provide the spatially detailed information to assist with farm management.

Meeting with Freshwater and Land Advisory Group (FLAG) members: The FLAG group was a collaborative community group supported by TDC that reviewed freshwater management in the catchment between 2104 and 2019. I met with Greg Anderson and Mick Simmons (some additional FLAG members had been part of meetings earlier in the day). Some areas of discussion were sinkholes and possible springs and caves in the eastern side of the valley that may be suitable for sampling.

Friday 12 July

Meeting with Golden Bay Community Board: Present were Abby Langford (Chair), Grant Knowles (Deputy Chair), Henry Dixon, Cr Celia Butler, Cr Chris Hill, and Kim Drummond (TDC Group Manager Environmental Assurance). We discussed the scope and purpose of the review. They talked about interest from the public and their need to be kept informed.

Meeting with Ngāti Tama: I met with Margie Little (Chair), Cr Chris Hill, Jenna Neame (General Manager) and Willow Milligan (recently completed a MSc on cultural monitoring for the TWS). They provided a history of their involvement with TWS and their management, including the preparation of the Mātauranga report and various commercialisation possibilities for TWS that had been proposed in the past.

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