About Wise Water Use HB's 'Not in our Name' campaign:

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On 31 October 2024 the CHB District Council voted 7/2 to endorse the 'so called' Hawkes Bay Community Water Trust.

• None of the 4 other Hawkes Bay Councils were consulted, and CHBDC refused WWU's request to initiate public consultation on the establishment of the trust;

• WWU argued that the trust was simply a Trojan Horse to advance Ruataniwha v.2 by providing the veneer of community buy-in as a prerequisite to receiving funding from the Regional Infrastructure Fund;​

• Just 5 weeks later, on 6 December, Shane Jones (Regional Development Minister) announced $3million of taxpayers' money to advance Ruataniwha v.2.

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Wise Water Use is arguing that neither the 'so called' Community Trust nor the Ruataniwha dam are being advanced in the name of the Hawkes Bay community - this is a case of stolen identity!

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We are asking you to contact your local district and/or regional councillor and your local MP and to tell them "not in our name!", and to get informed about Ruataniwha v.2 by looking at the information on our website, and sharing with neighbours, friends and family.  We have local body elections coming up in October, which provides a great opportunity to ask candidates "do you support Ruataniwha v.2?"

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NOT IN OUR NAME! 

Sign the petition

The dam promoters are attempting to greenwash Ruataniwha v.2 as being all about 'the health of the river and its people' by saying they will release 20 Mm3 of water annually for 'so called' environmental flows.  These flows will disrupt the river's natural ecosystem and will do nothing to help the tributaries to the main river stem. They certainly wouldn't be needed if we weren't over-extracting from the river and aquifer in the first place, a legacy of past Regional Councils who have allocated too many large water consents for intensive farming. The simple and fair answer is for the Regional Council to claw back large unsustainable consents and reallocate them based on most sustainable environmental use, and highest economic return.  This will incentivise the required land use change so that our region farms within its environmental limits. All that is required is the political will, not a hugely expensive publicly subsidised 100 Mm3 dam!

 

The dam promoters are proposing that the public pay for this water (yes, they propose that we buy our own water back!), most likely by way of an increase in Regional Council rates.

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As part of Wise Water Use HB's 'Not in our Name' campaign we are launching on the evening of Thursday 27 March the petition below, to be presented to the HB Regional Council: ​

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​"We, the undersigned, oppose the Ruataniwha dam promoters’ plan to use public money to pay for so called ‘environmental flows’.  We ask Council to confirm publicly that they will not agree to pay for this water, nor commit any more ratepayer money to this project."

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Let's stand together for our community and environment!​​

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