Agrilink provides a full resource consenting service. We work closely with our clients to ensure that their resource consent (new or replacement), is completed and submitted to council in a professional, timely and as stress free manner as possible. We prepare water use consents for vegetable, orchard, vineyard and pastoral operations.
Agrilink is experienced in preparing evidence based water-use consent applications. We have developed climate and plant water-use models, and combine these with industry-wide benchmarking and water-use efficiency programmes.
Councils need to be assured that the quantity of water being applied for is justified, particularly for the annual allocation component of the consent. We achieve this for our clients by preparing an irrigation use report that accompanies the council consent forms. These reports include the property description and a description of the irrigation system. The quantity of water is justified based on the irrigation system capacity and our plant water-use model. This NIWA based model uses daily rainfall and evapotranspiration readings dating back to 1972 from a virtual weather station that is within 5km of the client’s property. An example of the output is shown in the figure below.
Irrigation consent example title page
This evidence based approach provides the council with confidence to grant the requested consent.
The use of water meters has become mandatory since November 2010 through the introduction of the Resource Management (Measurement and Reporting of Water Takes) Regulations 2010. The regulations apply to holders of water permits (resource consents) which allow fresh water to be taken at a rate of 5 litres/second or more. For existing consent holders there is a transitional phasing in of the metering requirements based on their flow. This applies now for consent holders that are greater than 20 l/sec, November 2014 for those between 10 and 20 l/sec and by November 2016 for those between 5 and 10 l/sec.
Interaction with the council doesn’t end once the water permit is issued. Some of our clients prefer us to manage this on-going communication and we will happily do this.
Water has become an extremely valuable resource, one that must be managed by the council for the whole community.
