The Central Plains Water Scheme is officially dead. Huzzah! The scheme would have flooded the Waianiwaniwa Valley, drowning local communities to provide a storage lake for Canterbury's thirsty cows. But after a preliminary decision last month, Central Plains Water has withdrawn its applications for resource consent for the lake, and will instead be pursuing a much more limited traditional irrigation scheme with much lower environmental impacts.
Farmers will no doubt be pointing to this as an example of problems with the RMA. But for the rest of us - the people who don't want to see great swathes of country drowned or rivers sucked dry to pursue inappropriate and environmentally unsustainable development for the profit of a greedy few - it is a victory and an example of the law working as it should.
