Technical and Policy Update from IrrigationNZ

Stephen McNally Principal Technical Advisor IrrigationNZ

Technical and policy update

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT 1991 (RMA) REFORMS

IrrigationNZ has taken the opportunity to make a formal submission to the Environment Select Committee on the Natural and Built Environment Bill (NBEB) and Spatial Planning Bill (SPB).

We believe that there is a need for reform and that the case for change is clear. The RMA is not fit for its intended purpose of balancing the protection of our natural resources with the needs of our society. These needs are safe, reliable, and affordable food and natural fibres produced by a resilient and strong primary sector economy.

Over the past 30 years the RMA and its associated planning documents have been highly amended and manipulated.

This has resulted in an unbalanced approach that has not achieved the intended outcomes for a protected environment, resilient society, and buoyant economy.

We believe that it needs to be replaced with something that is better.

The reform process is an opportunity to make significant amendments to the current RMA and planning documents, which should result in a better legislative framework for resource management and enable our community to progress. However, we did not support the form of the bills presented for public submission in late 2022.

This reform is a crucial opportunity for IrrigationNZ and its members to make an ongoing positive and practical contribution to New Zealand’s future. All human existence has an environmental impact, which is exacerbated as the population grows. We need to strike a balance in our environmental policies, which must be supported by

sound and workable legislation, including sensible planning instruments. We agree that the management of New Zealand’s natural resources should take a long-term approach, based on sound knowledge and a combination of science and mātauranga mauri, Te Mana o te Wai, etc.

To ensure that all community expectations are considered and met where possible, carefully planned use of natural resources for community wellbeing needs to be balanced with safe, healthy, and reliable food and fibre production. It’s worth noting that our national communities of interest regarding environmental outcomes are not confined to urban dwellers; rural communities and their social fabric must also have a say in the resource management decision-making process.

We need to strike a balance in our environmental policies, which must be supported by sound and workable legislation, including sensible planning instruments.

IrrigationNZ highlighted that uncertain durations of consents or the possibility of mid-term reviews or alterations could deter investment in irrigation infrastructure, which is essential for providing stability to businesses and community planning and development. Therefore, clear and predictable regulatory frameworks are necessary to adapt to changing requirements. They must strike a balance between flexibility and prescriptiveness, local and national approaches, and diverse stakeholder input. This balance of certainty is crucial for the well-being of businesses, communities, and the environment.

The NBEB in its February 2023 form was not a good solution. It was too restrictive, and short-term focused on the interests of a narrow view of the environment and the benefits farming brings to society.

We agreed with many other submitters that the NBEB and SPB are too complex, confused, and ambiguous. We presented to the Select Committee that a lack of improvement in the bills will lead to a litigious approach as anomalies are identified and debated, with little benefit to the environment or meeting community aspirations.

IrrigationNZ in its submission has proposed several pragmatic improvements to this legislation.

See our submission on our website, under News & Advocacy, Submissions.

NATIONAL OBJECTIVE FRAMEWORK (NOF) GUIDANCE

IrrigationNZ recently made a submission to the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) on He Ārahitanga mō Te Anga Whāinga ā-Motu o te National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) / Guidance on the National Objectives Framework of the NPS-FM; July 2022. The document was open for review for six months.

The core target of the NOF guidance appears to be regional councils looking for help in delivering on the requirements set out in the NPS-FM, clause by clause stating the policy intent and suggesting what a region should do within their planning instruments.

In our experience, for a regional council staff member time-pressured in producing a new consent, the NOF guidance could default to be considered the rule book, without the staff member going back to the Regulations or even the Resource Management Act as it stands.

Therefore, all guidance needs to be consistent with Acts and Regulations, without introducing bias or new aspects that have not had the benefit of community input.

In our opinion there is, unfortunately, an unhelpful negative undertone to the NOF guidance, along with other environmental policies and regulations, in reference to agricultural use of water resources. There is virtually no reference to any form of land use from human activity having an environmental impact, other than farming. For example, urban sprawl and municipal sewage discharges are basically unmentioned. There is a single use of the word wastewater in relation to the urban environment.

The missing balance is that the community view on water availability and security for producing food is not mentioned as an objective of managing our natural resources. Irrigation is glossed over or outright disapproved of as a source of contamination.

Taking this negatively-weighted view of water for food production, the requirements of the NOF could see constraining limits set for at least ten years, with an encouragement in the guide for regional councils to take an even longer view on locking things down. That approach will place our rural communities, their social fabric, and the agrisector economy at risk.

The NPS-FM directive is clear that communities must be involved in setting environmental objectives and cannot be dismissed in favour of a solely council/iwi partnership. IrrigationNZ believes some regional councils already have this critically wrong, saying publicly that only the regional council and iwi will set the Freshwater Management Unit (FMU) objectives and all other people “in communities” are stakeholders on the outside of the two-way partnership. IrrigationNZ has submitted that the NOF guidance is critical in clarifying the regulations.

The NOF guide uses language that encourages restrictive actions, adopting timeframes and changes in land use practices that are still subject to submissions on the enabling Act reforms, and steps into redefining good farming practices.

The suggestion that ten years gives certainty is naive at best and introduces a bias that is unsubstantiated. We are particularly concerned that telling irrigators that their access to water is temporary will not help provide confidence in investing in the long-term water storage assets and land use change that

other government policies are encouraging. Ten years is insufficient for effective infrastructure development, e.g. many crops don’t produce their first full yield for several years.

FRESHWATER FARM PLAN (FWFP) REGULATIONS

While we are bound by non-disclosure agreements on the details of the exposure draft regulations, we hold a general understanding of the regulations and the farm plan template roll out process.

We have gone back to contemplate our 2021 submission to MfE on how to make the regulations workable in terms of getting buyin (i.e. people accepting and using FWFPs as a tool) rather than seeing the regulations as another compliance box-ticking exercise.

What we don’t want are regulations that are overly complex and focused on processes that do not reflect the fundamentally important role of the agricultural communities and businesses which are best placed to achieve the environmental objectives set out in the public policies.

Our 2021 submission highlighted several key areas which we feel are still valid in the development of the FWFP regulations.

While we support the notion that certainty for the farming community will come from nationally consistent regulations, they must retain the flexibility in a regional context to adopt and adapt to well-established locally focused or sector specific farm planning processes and industry assurance programmes. This is vitally important to avoid duplication of farm management actions or redundancy of existing effective programmes.

IrrigationNZ accepts the fundamental concept behind the FWFPs being the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management – Te Mana o te Wai principles. These principles clearly establish the joint obligation of communities, tangata whenua, and regional councils of New Zealand to work together in a partnership. The role of the community is highlighted throughout as being critical in establishing freshwater values and taking actions to address risks. The language and intent of the FWFP regulations need to reflect the active role of the food and fibre sectors accordingly.

The timing and milestones within the certification and audit processes must reflect that different regions, farming communities, catchment groups, and irrigation schemes are at different stages of dealing with farm

environmental plans. Many irrigation schemes are already well advanced within their shareholder farming operations in the management of environmental impacts, through wellstructured and regulated systems. We believe that transition to a fully implemented FWFP system needs to acknowledge existing processes and knowledge relating to existing environmental management plans.

While there is some indication of a regionally staged rollout of the FWFP regulations, the timeframes need to reflect the constraints on pace of change in complex farming systems and business models. They also need to align the contemplation of, or agreement on, environmental values and objectives within a three-way partnership between a regulator, iwi, and the community. The FWFP process cannot be undertaken when these relationships and values have not yet been established. The farmers and growers should not be held accountable where these activities are yet to be commenced.

There needs to be a nationally integrated approach to capacity building, through training and accreditation of FWFP certifiers and auditors, to support the development of functional FWFP regulations. While this capacity building process seems to be under way, there remains a lack of readily available expertise across many complex areas of freshwater management, such as irrigation management.

Finally, we advocated in 2021 that any policy development timeframe should be in alignment with other nationally set legislation and regulations to enable and ensure relative consistency of processes across the country. IrrigationNZ continues to urge the freshwater policy development team to fully integrate their work programme with other teams in the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), MfE, Taumata Arowai and Te Waihanga. These organisations all have work programmes affecting the management of productive land and water resources, most significantly the resource management reforms (NBEB and NPF). Overall, looking at the Natural and Built Environment (NBE) Select Committee process we feel the FWFP regulations would sit better within the proposed National Planning Framework (NPF) than within the proposed NBE Act, in order to allow the flexibility to more easily adapt the processes to inevitable change and locally targeted priorities.

TRAINING

We would like to take this time to acknowledge all those people who have taken up the challenge of studying this year. It is not easy to juggle life, work, and study commitments all at the same time, and we recognise that the last couple of years has added additional unique challenges to the mix. We applaud your efforts!

Despite these challenges, we have had record numbers attend training with us in 2022 and we plan to continue this into 2023. During 2022 we ran our largest-ever intake of the Certificate in Irrigation System Design course with 17 students taking part. We held Irrigation System Performance Assessment courses in Canterbury (February and May), Northland, and the Bay of Plenty and had the first cohort of students start on their journey working through their Cert III in Irrigation Technology in September.

Participants on the Cert III in Irrigation Technology, September 2022.

This year also saw our largest-ever number of students studying for their verification and installation workbooks with over 60 registrations. This a true sign that our Blue Tick accreditation programme is strong and growing, and continuing to hold our industry up to the standards of our Water Measurement Code of Practice.

Taking time to learn something new and increase your understanding in your sector, or possibly in a new sector, is great for personal growth and a very rewarding experience. If you are interested in taking up some study in 2023, please have a look at what we offer and get in touch! As well as formal qualifications and shorter 1–2 day training sessions, we also offer a range of study modules online that can be accessed through our members-only e-learning platform at any time. Click on the red E-Learning tab on the top left of our website, have a look around, and see if there is an online course that takes your fancy.

RECOGNISED VS REGISTERED VS CERTIFIED. WHAT’S IN A NAME?

It is great seeing so many candidates passing through our NZ Certificate of Irrigation Design programme and emerging with their NZQA certificates! I have recently been engaging with Irrigation Australia (IAL) on the activities of their Irrigation Certification Board. The IAL Certification Board sits to one side of the main IAL Board and has some parallel to the functions of our IrrigationNZ Accreditation Leadership Team and its programmes. I’ll be investigating further

where we can gain from alignment with the IAL certification processes, potentially for managing ongoing professional development and maintaining currency in our Certified Irrigation Designers.

One issue that was raised by IAL under their own regulatory development is the use of the term Registered Engineer in relation to irrigation projects. In Australia many local authorities undertake irrigation projects within a city’s urban environment or in commercial developments that fall under contracts that specify roles for professional engineers. They therefore run activities for irrigation design, installation, and sign off that aren’t necessarily in the expertise of, for example, a civil engineer.

It is interesting to see similar issues in Australia and New Zealand regarding the drafting of legislation and regulations related to role definition. The Registered Professional Engineers Act 2019 (Victoria, Australia), which commenced in 2021, prescribes five areas of engineering (fire safety, civil, structural, electrical, and mechanical). The programme requires an application, assessment, and commitment to continuous professional development, and is designed to improve engineering standards. The Act prescribes significant penalties for individuals (up to $92,000) for serious breaches.

In Queensland, where similar legislation has been in place longer, the majority of

compliance actions relate to complaints made against those who are unregistered, or misrepresenting themselves as Professional Engineers in some way. The IAL Certification Board is currently questioning the relevance of the legislation to their irrigation sector, particularly Irrigation Australia’s certification programmes, including the Certificated Irrigation Designer qualification.

Like IrrigationNZ, IAL encourages the use of Certified Irrigation Designers for design work associated with irrigation projects of any significance. However, design of irrigation systems has not traditionally been viewed as an engineering activity, and is generally undertaken without any external regulatory management or control.

An irrigation design professional would typically undertake the design of most irrigation systems while engaging where appropriate with a qualified engineer for specialised technical support (including more significant structural design activities relating to dams, channels, pontoons, major intake structures, etc).

Similarly, qualified engineers working on irrigation design projects within a local authority or major civil development such as a retirement village often engage with experienced (and hopefully certified) irrigation design professionals to gain specialised knowledge and support beyond the engineer’s level of expertise.

In common with IAL, IrrigationNZ suggests Certified Irrigation Designers (in Australia or New Zealand) should make themselves aware of the definition of a professional engineering service, ensure they are not misrepresenting their own services, and consider when professional engineers should be engaged in relation to any particular project.

IrrigationNZ is dealing with a similar process under the NZ Building Act as it relates to the new NZ Dam Safety Regulations that were gazetted in May 2022 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

A New Zealand dam owner (i.e. a farmer or scheme owner) is required under the regulations to determine if their structure exceeds the threshold for height and volume to see if it is a classifiable storage structure. IrrigationNZ worked with MBIE to develop a simple sizing tool for those owners who don’t know the dimensions or volume of their structures. The regulations go on to place the obligation on the owner to determine the Potential Impact Classification (PIC) of a classifiable structure in the event of a possible dam failure. This PIC is based on a downstream inundation assessment (looking at risk to life, environment, infrastructure, and cultural sites). However, only a “recognised engineer” (as determined by the Act) can sign off the owners threshold assessment and PIC certificate. Under the Act this excludes your run of the mill professional engineers who may be registered for general practice but not “recognised” as being dam safety experts.

The original Dam Safety Policy minute to Cabinet said the intent was that low-risk structures like farm dams and irrigation races were not intended to be burdened under the

regulations. The original regulatory impact statement suggested there were only about 900 at-risk structures (medium to high PIC) in New Zealand that needed attention under a dam safety assurance programme, and that there would be capacity within the New Zealand professional engineering body to provision the number of recognised dam engineers. However, our probing through those involved with the original dam inventory would suggest that there are in the order of 5000+ dam structures that exceed the threshold as classifiable structures. Many of these previously unaccounted for structures will sit in the rural environment and will be small with a low PIC. This count does include individual canal sections (these are assessed as storage elements between each drop structure).

It is these mostly low-risk structures that the Minister for Building suggested should not be impacted, but we believe they are, unfortunately! The way the regulations have been written, even low impact farm structures are required to be signed off by engaging a recognised engineer. Further, what only became apparent in the guidance to the regulations is that the Building Act that sits above the regulations also requires recertification every five years to ensure the PIC hasn’t changed. Dam owners who don’t get a PIC signed off and every five years thereafter will be in breach of the regulations which take effect in May 2024.

This is the unintended consequence of uncoordinated legislation. A PIC can’t be signed off under the proposed Freshwater Farm Plan legislation (under Ministry for the Environment) or the Rural Drinking Water regulations (under Department of Internal Affairs) or within the On Farm Advisory Service (under Ministry of Primary Industries); these require different set of “certified”, “qualified” or “trained” rural professionals to come up the driveway, potentially to look at the very same structures related to water.

IrrigationNZ is continuing to advocate for sensible legislation and closer coordination of those developing regulations that impact irrigation infrastructure.

TE WAIHANGA ASSET MANAGEMENT STATE OF PLAY REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

IrrigationNZ has engaged with Te Waihanga, the NZ Infrastructure Commission, on helping inform its Asset Management State of

Play Project which is being conducted across 2022–23. Irrigation infrastructure is part of an ongoing conversation regarding how it fits within a national critical lifeline definition related to food supply security. This is not only following extreme events such as floods and seismic activity, but also through ongoing risk assessment associated with the likes of climate change and population growth.

Te Waihanga has commissioned the State of Play project to report on the maturity of asset management in New Zealand by Q2 2023. The purpose is to gather, assess, and report data on the baseline asset management performance of the infrastructure system, and to examine the regulatory frameworks, funding incentives, capabilities, and organisational behaviours that drive our infrastructure outcomes.

Infrastructure, including irrigation, supports the lives and wellbeing of New Zealanders – it includes the networks that service our homes with power, water, and waste removal; our communications and transport networks; our networks of hospitals and schools; and many other services that support our wellbeing and economy, including the agri-sector.

Our infrastructure must keep pace with and address many challenges – including responding to changes in our population and its distribution, to climate change, and to rising construction costs. However, the biggest single challenge we’ll face is the cost of repairing or replacing infrastructure that’s wearing out.

Much of the infrastructure we need today is already in existence – the foresight, decisions, and labour of our forebears has built us a strong foundation. It’s a legacy that we have a duty to look after by maintaining and replacing where necessary so future New Zealanders also benefit.

While much of our critical infrastructure is owned and looked after by public institutions – central government agencies and entities, and local councils – this is not the case for irrigation infrastructure.

The Te Waihanga project has identified that there isn’t enough information available together in one place to tell us much about asset management capability or performance – we can’t really say how well we’re doing across our asset owners and operators.

Te Waihanga is asking leading practitioners and stakeholders in each sector and in representative industry bodies about their

experiences and insights, as part of developing this State of Play of Asset Management in New Zealand.

IrrigationNZ is canvassing its members to help inform what the state of asset management practice is today in order to help improve all aspects of our system – learning what’s working well and delivering the best value from our assets, and where things are not working well, learning why this is and how they could be improved.

CODES OF PRACTICE UPDATES

The team at IrrigationNZ continues to work on updating our resources and is pleased to announce updates to both The New Zealand Piped Irrigation System Performance Assessment Code of Practice and The New Zealand Water Measurement Code of Practice.

Both updates can be found by visiting our website and viewing ‘Codes of Practice’ under ‘Practical Resources’.

We have two documents next in the queue for review.

The first task is updating our Guidance on Irrigation System Commissioning. Commissioning is a process by which agreement is reached that the installed system meets the design performance specifications. It is really important, as the purchaser, to check that the machine being installed is as per the design specifications. While a bucket test is useful to determine general system performance, the results produced are only indicative. Instead, a more comprehensive procedure should be undertaken that includes pressure and flow testing.

The other document up for review is the IrrigationNZ Technical Glossary, including a close look at some of the handy formulas our designers use. We are aware of some inconsistencies between the Technical Glossary and the Design or Performance Assessment Codes of Practice. Our aim is to ensure accuracy and consistency in our review outcomes.