Remember the Ruataniwha dam? The Hawke's Bay Regional Council wasted $14 million trying to push this environmental disaster through before the Supreme Court ruled that the land swap it relied on with DoC was illegal. At the end of it, they wrote off the money and sold the existing consents to a group of local businessmen. But now it turns out that they are still subsidising them:
A rural council in Hawke's Bay has agreed to relieve the financial stress of a controversial group that owns the rights to a failed dam project.Water Holdings Hawke's Bay claims they deserve this subsidy because they are working "on behalf of the community". Bullshit. The Hawkes' Bay community has rejected this project - as have the courts. And if they're too poor to pay for the ongoing monitoring required to maintain the consents, the answer is obvious: surrender them.[...]
The intellectual property and consents were sold to Water Holdings Hawke's Bay.
The group recently asked the council to grant $58,000 to meet science charges - the costs of monitoring and managing consents.
At its latest meeting, all but one of the district councillors there voted to grant the fund.
