Christchurch – West Melton Committee focuses on urban water management

The Christchurch – West Melton Zone Committee will meet on 27 August for its regular monthly meeting to discuss local water management.

The committee will begin the meeting by welcoming members of the public to contribute before it goes on to discuss three key projects for urban water management in the Addington Brook and Cashmere catchments.

The Addington Brook catchment has been identified as a priority catchment for improved stormwater management. Recent catchment scale pollutant load modelling confirmed that stormwater contaminant issues are prominent in this sub-catchment.

The Working Group has been focussed on working with the community and key organisations on how to gather more data to ensure a targeted programme can be developed to improve water quality in the catchment. In the meantime it has also been looking at what interim on the ground actions can be taken.

At the meeting the committee will also receive a progress report from the Cashmere Catchment Working Group which has been focussed on developing a programme to control erosion and sediment losses to improve water quality.

The programme which aims to provide industry with an improved ability to manage and monitor fine sediments will be presented to the full committee for approval. Later in the meeting the committee will hear from Environment Canterbury on its sediment control guidelines.

The zone committee will then receive an update from its Unconfined Aquifers & Land Use Working Group before going on to consider four local biodiversity projects for Immediate Steps funding.

The Immediate Steps biodiversity funding programme aims to protect ecosystems and habitats to conserve indigenous freshwater diversity. Zone committees decide the priorities for each zone and distribute the funding.

The four projects being considered involve planting and weed control initiatives to protect and enhance local waterways and wetlands. To date the Christchurch West Melton Zone Committee has allocated more than $285,000 to local projects meaning there is still around $215,000 available – see www.ecan.govt.nz/biodiversity for more information and application forms.

Following this, the committee will receive a presentation from Environment Canterbury on its 2015 CWMS Targets Report. The targets are an agreed way to measure progress of how the community’s aspirations for water management are being delivered across the region.

The committee will finish the meeting with updates on its July workshops on the Natural Environment Recovery Programme and the 2014 Surface Water Quality Monitoring Report for Christchurch City Waterways.

Meeting information

Christchurch – West Melton Committee
6:30pm, Thursday, 27 August
Fendalton Service Centre (corner Clyde and Jeffreys Roads)

ENDS

© Scoop Media