Stuart Nash: Dam issues need sorting

Thu, Jul 04 2013

Stuart Nash’s “Talking Point” in today’s HB Today says it all … or asks it all. He raises all the questions that must be satisfied before a thinking person can prudently support the Regional Council’s $600 million CHB water storage scheme.

Today, there are two groups of politicians (and business leaders for that matter) in Hawke’s Bay when it comes to the dam.

Group 1 says: “I’ve seen and heard enough (usually an HBRC powerpoint presentation) to support this dam as Hawke’s Bay’s key to the Garden of Eden.” They — folks like Regional Councillors Fenton Wilson, Christine Scott, Alan Dick (each also on the Regional Investment Company board) and most of their Council colleagues — have stopped asking any questions. They’re just waiting for the clock to tick on a Board of Inquiry … they expect no unpleasant surprises there.

Group 2 says: “I don’t oppose the dam. Indeed I’ll strongly support it IF it’s environmentally sound and IF it’s economically viable.” This is a hedge, but not an unjustifiable one for the moment, given the uncertainties about both environmental and economic feasibility that indeed exist.

I have no doubt that for many of these Group 2 politicians, those are actually code words designed to get by the coming local body elections — aimed at satisfying both the ‘true believers’ (who believe as a matter of faith that any proposal that merely promises/alleges more jobs and growth in HB sprang from the right side of Jesus), and the yet-to-be-politically-measured skeptics (who see or fear fatal flaws, environmental and/or economic).

Eventually, most likely after October 2013, these politicians — many of them ‘faux’ skeptics now — will announce their carefully reasoned judgments.

Meantime, Stuart Nash, a Group 2 politician, one I take to be genuinely apprehensive about the dam, frames the issues well in his Talking Point article. You can download it here, or find it pasted below for your convenience.

Tom Belford

ENDS

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