Letter to the Editor, not published in HB Today
- Wise Water Use
- Jun 7
- 2 min read

Lead Advocate for Wise Water Use, Gren Christie
Wise Water Use lead Advocate, Gren Christie, submitted the letter below to the editor of HB Today on Monday 2nd June; however, it has not been published to date.
Can a leopard change it’s spots?
It appears in the case of Fenton Wilson it cannot.
When Fenton was the Captain of the good ship the HBRC, around $20 million of
ratepayers money went on the rocks of the Ruataniwha Dam debacle.
That ship sunk when farmers couldn’t afford the cost of buying Dam water and
the desire to steal conservation land for private gain failed.
The $20m hole in the side of the good ship HBRC undoubtedly was instrumental
of almost half our Port’s assets going south.
Good work there, Captain!
Now this Captain of sunken dreams is at the helm of another shipping line, the
good ship CHB Centralines.
Same mission but a much smaller ship.
With the presumed enthusiastic support of committed Dam supporter 1st Mate
Sara von Dadelszen, the shareholders of the lines company are now having their
gold pirated away in an attempt to refloat the sunken and dammed ship
Ruataniwha.
The same old propaganda as before.
“ We need this so we can all thrive ,spin, spin, spin, win, win, win,” etc.
No mention of the fact that Central HB has the highest water use per capita in HB
for the lowest return, and if we did something about that we would undoubtedly
all be better off and have no need for a mega-Dam.
If Centralines wants to step outside its core business I would suggest that they,
for a very small budget cost, survey the potential water customers and ask them
how much would they pay for Dam water, taking into account the unsubsidised
cost was between 40 and 50 cents first time around?
I doubt there will many takers.
This is something the Dam promoters should have done first up but hey it’s not
their gold they are spending.
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