‘A vista of mud flats and rotten tree stumps’ - Wise Water Use calls for a dam reset

Shelley Burne-Field, WWU Advocate and local author

A group calling for a public reset and an honest conversation about the Ruataniwha Dam 2.0 proposal, met with Central Hawke’s Bay district councillors on Thursday 7 May 2026. The meeting was also open to the public, though controversially not live-streamed.

In recent weeks, (WWU) Wise Water Use’s Dr Trevor Le Lievre and Mr Gren Christie have pushed for the opportunity to address the CHB District Council, after backers of the dam met for an hour-long presentation with the Mayor and elected members in late January 2026 - which was excluded to the public.

Both Dr Le Lievre and Mr Christie said their group wanted the chance to undertake some myth-busting. Dr Le Lievre who spent many years living in Wakarara, close to the Makaroro river site of the proposed dam, spoke about why Wise Water Use with public support has continued to push back against the controversial Ruataniwha Dam project, rebranded as the Tuki Tuki Water Security (TWS) project.

“We are advocating for a reset. For all parties to open up this issue into a full and transparent public debate. For years the public have been told how this gargantuan dam will be the saviour to all the water problems in Hawke’s Bay, and it’s just not true,” said Dr Le Lievre.

Mr Christie said accurate information about potential cost blow outs and further environmental degradation is often buried, and wanted to take this chance to brief elected members as well as the wider public.

“When you put all your eggs in one giant concrete basket - somebody will drain the profits out of it, but somebody will also have to pay for it. The greatest risk is our river systems, and coastal areas will pay the highest cost yet,” Mr Christie said.

Instead, the Wise Water Use group asks for a review of current water consents to address the legacy issue of over-allocation and, following that process, proposes rigorous investigation into smaller off-main-river stem catchment scale solutions. They also say on-farm dams or the like can scale alongside growing knowledge of how our Hawke’s Bay river and ground systems adapt over time.

As part of the 7 May public meeting, Councillors were encouraged to ask questions or make comments in what Wise Water Use said was “a refreshing and open departure from normal council protocol.”

In response to Dr Le Lievre’s criticism about claims of tourists flocking to the dam as a summer recreational destination, Councillor Kelly Annand said that she hadn’t heard any talk of ‘tourism’ at the publicly excluded meeting on 29 January 2026.

“The dam builders didn’t talk about tourists this time round,” Councillor Annand said.

But Dr Le Lievre considers this type of false narrative still abounds, and is concerned about unsubstantiated information influencing public opinion.

He added that recently, in June 2025, RNZ reported that at the first public meeting held by the dam project leaders, Ruataniwha 2.0 was slated by one local as becoming the ‘Lake Como of the southern hemisphere’; yet, WWU maintains the dam will be at its lowest level during this period due to intensive irrigation.

“The reality will be a vista of mud flats and rotten tree stumps, rather than a lakeside resort,” Dr Le Lievre said. He urges backers of the dam to get real.

At the publicly excluded meeting in January 2026 , dam frontperson Mr Mike Petersen and CE Mr Mike Scott of ‘Tuki Tuki Water Security Ltd’ (TWSL) outlined a commercial investment proposition for Council.

A response to a Local Government Official Information Act request 2026/21 lodged by WWU from interim CEO Ross McLeod states:

“On 29 January 2026, TWSL outlined a commercial investment proposition for Council to provide a potential financial contribution to the feasibility study, details of which were commercially sensitive at the time.”

“On 12 February 2026, options to provide potential support for the feasibility study were investigated. These included options for political advocacy, letters of support, and / or a financial contribution through the commercial investment proposition that was outlined by TWSL [Mike Petersen and Mike Scott] on 29 January 2026. No funding has been committed. Council is committed to making any such decision in a public forum.”

Wise Water Use believes that publicly excluded meetings should not be used to keep information and data away from the public who, having recently contributed $21 million of taxpayers’ money to the project, were in fact unwitting partners entitled to full transparency.

Chair Brent Muggeridge and several other councillors noted that the meeting with Petersen and Scott was excluded to the public because of commercial sensitivities. However, the WWU presenters condemned the TWSL for ‘secretly’ asking for commercial investment from CHB Council that may adversely affect ratepayers.

“People want and need to see all the dots so they can join them - so they can make up their own minds about the future of their communities,” Dr Le Lievre said.

When Deputy Mayor, Jerry Greer, suggested that it was the responsibility of the Council to look at the dam’s feasibility, Mr Christie questioned the need for further studies.

Mr Christie gave an example of reports already available, one study which estimates 5-7 truck loads of gravel extraction required per day.

“And that’s a pretty low estimate,’ Mr Christie said. “Cyclone Gabrielle washed millions of cubic metres of shingle into the Makororo. Think about how we get that out from behind a dam wall - and who will pay for the torn-up public roads?”

Chair Muggeridge said Council has a duty to support water security in the district, while Deputy Mayor Greer agreed and added Council was involved in looking at new feasibility studies because of Council’s desire to improve economic development.

Dr Le Lievre challenged the assumption that councils had a mandate to pursue economic development outcomes, suggesting the wider public generally wanted district councils to “stick to their knitting.”

At the beginning of the meeting, there was some confusion about timing when Chair Muggeridge disagreed that one hour was set aside and that perhaps “half an hour” would do.

When Mr Christie explained that Mayor Will Foley (who had a prior engagement and was not present at the meeting) had guaranteed a full hour for a presentation plus Q & A session, Chair Muggeridge replied “we’ll see.”

The two Wise Water Use presenters expressed their appreciation that local councillors allowed the full hour, and were fully engaged in the discussion in the spirit of open community engagement.

However, several members of the public complained afterwards that they had attempted to watch the proceedings online, only to find that the public meeting was not live streamed.

Shelley Burne-Field

7 May 2026