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On-Stream


A huge congratulations to Cody and Nicola Hartvigsen, who won the Otago Regional Council Quality Water Management Award at the Ballance Farm Environment Awards held in Wanaka in April. They also won the DairyNZ Sustainability and Stewardship Award for their South Otago farm.

We’d also like to congratulate the Regional Supreme Award winners – Logan, Ross and Alexa Wallace. We had a great time at the field day held at their farm in South Otago last week.

No doubt some of you are gearing up for Gypsy Day. If you're transporting stock, please remember to stand them overnight to keep muck off the roads, and prevent it getting into waterways. There's great information about on-farm biosecurity practices on the Biosecurity New Zealand website.

As we move into winter, grazing techniques need to be a focus. We've shared Beef + Lamb's helpful winter grazing video in the In Brief section below, and James has a link to DairyNZ information in his write-up. Please have a look at these so you can prevent unwanted sediment and nutrients getting into Otago's waterways. The stream life living there will thank you!


Happy reading,
The ORC team
 
Feature: New approach for minimum flow plan changes
We have a new approach for delivering a number of water quantity plan changes. So far we've been consulting with the community on these plan changes on an individual catchment basis, and the new approach sees us bringing this work together to notify a single plan change.

The plan change will set minimum flows for particular catchments and assist in evaluating the replacement of deemed water permits within the wider Clutha/Mata-au catchment. 

This approach means we'll have efficiency in bringing the plan changes together and providing greater certainty to the community and water users when they come to replace their deemed water permits, because minimum flows will be in the plan rather than assessed at the time an application is lodged.

The identified catchments are the Arrow, Upper Cardrona and Manuherikia. Minor technical changes on how residual flows are set and measured within the region will also form part of this plan change.

While early consultation on the individual plan changes involved setting water allocation limits, this work will now be scoped as part of a broader work programme to give effect to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. Work on other water quantity plan changes within the region will also continue in the background.

Key stakeholder and community information sessions will be held in Dunedin and Cromwell in early to mid-June. At these sessions minimum flows for the Arrow, Upper Cardrona and Manuherikia catchments will be presented. Please contact us at customerservices@orc.govt.nz if you are interested in attending one of these sessions.

Information on the plan change will also be regularly updated on our new online platform YourSay.
 
 
Updates from your liaison specialists
Bruce Monaghan - Central Otago
 
A series of refresher presentations is being carried out during this month and June for land holders who are preparing to replace their deemed permits by October 2021.

The presentations are also for those who are renewing Resource Management Act (RMA) consents, which may be also be due around this time. 

If you have an existing RMA consent where you may need to share water within a tributary during lower water flow, the meetings are also relevant for you.

A key topic we'll discuss relates to the current rights under a deemed permit to convey water and maintain races across other people’s property. These rights expire in October 2021, and a section 417 Certificate needs to be applied for and granted before 1 October 2021 in order to retain these rights.
 
The presentations also include information about fish and flow data that's needed, and ORC's decision to assist with fish survey work where there are gaps in fish data.
 

Please give me a call to find out more, or to come to a meeting near you.
Nicole Foote - Strath Taieri & Central Coast Otago

nicole.foote@orc.govt.nz
027 564 7788

Earlier this month we held our second workshop to develop the Tomahawk Lagoon community vision. We now have a lot of ideas to process, which is great.

The next step is to draft up some projects, including potential costs, then ask for feedback from the community to help decide on the priorities. If you are interested in knowing more we are happy to send out the summary documents from the workshops - please email me.

You may have noted that the ORC Environmental Enhancement Fund has been out of action lately - it has been getting a timely revamp. We are eager to share the details with you and to provide, once again, the opportunity to apply for financial support from ORC. Stand by… we are nearly there!
 
Chantal Whitby - South Otago

chantal.whitby@orc.govt.nz 
027 558 7551

During the last month ORC has been touring the region to consult with the community on our long-term plan. As part of this you may have seen the big shipping container, also known as Lab-in-a-Box (a portable science laboratory), in Elizabeth Plaza in Balclutha. It was great to see so many people dropping in and asking questions about the plan, as well as getting amongst the science displays and experiments.

Look out for our upcoming second community workshop for Lake Tuakitoto, which will be held on 7 June and will focus on identifying projects or activities to achieve the goals for the lake that were identified in the first workshop. We’d love to see you there and hear your ideas. If you would like to find out more or be on the mailing list for the workshops please give me a call or email.
 
James White - North Otago

james.white@orc.govt.nz
027 286 5342

Winter graziers! Take notice! You need to think very carefully about how best to graze your winter crops to avoid sediment and nutrients leaving the paddock and getting into waterways. This is an issue that ORC continues to be concerned about and is an area that our compliance team will be targeting over the winter months. Do it right and you’ll have no issues. For some good tips and tricks click here.
 
I attended three great water quality focussed field days recently in the Waiareka and Awamoko catchments. The events were organised by NOSLaM but couldn’t have been done without three different landowners putting their hands up and volunteering their properties for the good of all – thanks you lot!

The events provided opportunities to have some good honest discussion around water quality, the issues, and what can be done about it. There is a real groundswell of active landowners building in these areas. If you missed these events but would like to get along to the next ones, contact Rob McTague 021 194 9597 or email noslamoffice@gmail.com.
 
ORC has begun our Good Water Project trial in the Shag catchment. We have contracted an independent consultant to visit farms over 10ha in size in the Shag River catchment. The farm visits are not related to compliance or enforcement - they are by landowner invitation and will focus on helping understand any risks a farming operation may have under the Otago Water Plan rules.

The assessment will not only help landowners, but will also help ORC to refine our Good Water Project before rolling it out across Otago. We want to make sure it will provide maximum benefit for both Otago’s landowners and water quality. It’s a win-win!
 
 
 
 
In Brief
Water take data needed by 31 July
A reminder to please get water take data to us by 31 July for those where telemetry isn’t sent to ORC daily. The data should cover the year from 1 July 2017 – 30 June 2018. If no abstraction has occurred then the records you supply should reflect this, i.e. a downloaded data logger file with zeros for each day. Please email your data to watermetering@orc.govt.nz
Winter grazing 
Beef + Lamb have produced a great video about winter grazing. A sheep and beef farm in West Otago talks about what they are doing to keep sediment out of waterways. Check out the video here. 
 
Silage storage reminder
ORC staff have noticed a number of properties with ponding from silage leachate, which is prohibited under Otago’s Water Plan. If you store silage, make sure the silage pit is lined and sealed, with a system to capture any potential leakage. Silage leachate is lethal for aquatic wildlife and we need to prevent it getting into waterways.

What's coming up?

For a full list of events click here.

June
7 June - Lake Tuakitoto. Our second workshop to develop goals and projects to enhance this South Otago lake. Register your interest with chantal.whitby@orc.govt.nz 

TBC - Minimum flow plan change community meetings

July
31 July - Deadline for getting water take data to ORC. Please email watermetering@orc.govt.nz
 
TBC
Re-launch of ORC's community fund
Third workshop for Tomahawk Lagoon restoration
Third workshop for Lake Tuakitoto restoration
ORC’s ten-year (long-term) plan to be adopted
 
 
The autumn issue of ORC's newsletter 'Waterlines' is out now. You can read it here.
 
If you know someone who should subscribe to On-Stream, forward this email to them and suggest they email us at  water@orc.govt.nz to subscribe.
 
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