As Tasman continues to receive minor rainfall, the District’s Dry Weather Task Force has updated its water direction orders for consent holders in several affected management zones.

From Monday 31 March 2025, the Motupiko water management zone will move to Stage 3 rationing (a 50% cut in consented water use), while the existing Rainy cease take remains in place as per Consent conditions for permit holders.

Stage 2 restrictions will remain in place for Moutere Deep - Eastern and Coastal Groundwater Zones as these interconnected areas are still showing low groundwater levels, despite some improvement in the Eastern Zone.

As Upper Motueka consent holders above Woodstock are expected to hit the Water Conservation Order (WCO) trigger of 7000 litres per second (l/s) in the coming days, Stage 1 rationing (a 20% cut) will apply from next week.

This includes Baton, Wangapeka, Stanley Brook, Glen Rae, Tadmor and Tapawera.

It is important that Consent holders are familiar with their Resource Consent conditions as some may be subject to higher restriction thresholds.

These restrictions do not apply to Tasman urban water supplies or Council-managed reticulated water supplies beyond the conditions of consent.

Last week’s rain benefited the Upper Buller area the most, with river flows across the rest of the District also benefiting from the resulting small flushes.

While most of the flow increases have since receded and continue to drop, only the Riuwaka, Motupiko and Motueka River flow at Woodstock are below consultation or Stage 1 trigger levels.

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In Golden Bay, the Aorere is flowing at 9200 l/s, Te Waikoropupū Springs is at 8500 l/s, while Tākaka at Kotinga is just below its annual low flow at 2800 l/s.

The Deep Moutere Groundwater Eastern Zone has risen slightly to reach 33.62m above mean sea level (amsl) compared to 33.44 last week, but the Coastal zone overall has dropped from 19.47 to 19.41m amsl.

Wai-iti Dam is 67.9 % full – which is a sufficient level to not require any water releases.

The Waimea Dam is 74.7 % full – due in large part to the recent water release for testing purposes - while the river flow at Appleby is 4200 l/s.

The Wairoa at Irvines 7 day moving mean flow is 4000 l/s and so the current Waimea Dam-Unaffiliated Stage 1 trigger remains in place.

At this stage, some light rain is predicted for the rest of this week and there are indications for more rain in the first week of April.

Staff will continue to monitor river flows, groundwater and soil moisture levels in the coming days to ascertain the need for further measures.

Decisions will be reviewed at the next meeting of the Dry Weather Taskforce, provisionally scheduled for Tuesday 1 April 2025.

You can keep up to date with groundwater and river flow data by visiting our environmental data portal www.tasman.govt.nz/my-region/environment/environmental-data-portal.

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