Source: Radio New Zealand
Site of the Tukituki Water Storage Project. RNZ
Forest & Bird has filed judicial review proceedings in the High Court challenging a decision to extend consents for the controversial Tukituki Water Storage Project.
The project, formerly called the Ruataniwha Dam, was scuppered by the Supreme Court in 2017 after a land swap was deemed unlawful.
But that could be overridden by the government’s Fast-track Approvals Act, and last month the project was granted an $18 million funding loan from the government to continue its viability study.
The proposed project would see a dam built on the Makaroro River, a tributary of the Tukituki River, and the flooding of 22 hectares of conservation land. The dam would be about 83m high in the Makaroro River and create a reservoir of approximately 93 million cubic metres, about seven kilometres long, and with a surface area of approximately 372 hectares.
Forest & Bird said the dam’s consents were granted in 2015, and would have lapsed after 10 years. The organisation said despite no physical work being done, the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, and Hastings District Council decided in April to extend the lapse dates by another five years.
Forest & Bird acting general counsel May Downing said the developers applied for an extension less than a week before consents were due to expire in June 2025, and the decision to extend the consents should never have been made.
She said legal action is critical to ensure proper process is followed.
“A lot has changed since these consents were granted in 2015. The Mākāroro Gorge has been identified as an outstanding natural feature. The aquifer is now recognised as an outstanding waterboy.
“The environmental context has dramatically shifted, and new protections recognise the important values of this river and surrounding landscapes, yet those were largely brushed aside – as were concerns by mana whenua – when this zombie project was brought back to life yet again,” she said.
Forest & Bird said the new application is for an even larger area than the 22 hectares that the Supreme Court deemed to be an illegal exchange.
“This case is about holding decision-makers to account and protecting one of Hawke’s Bay’s most important natural areas from an outdated and damaging proposal,” Downing said.
Project leader Mike Petersen told RNZ they have always been aware that Forest & Bird would campaign to stop the project.
“This is a completely different challenge to what happened to the old Ruataniwha project. Just to be clear – this is not a legal challenge against the Tukituki Water Security Project – but in fact a judicial review of the process local councils used to extend the current consents that are in place following the full Board of Enquiry Process.
“Extending consents is a normal process and it is extremely disappointing that robust decisions made locally are being challenged by a national NGO who are prepared to incur costs on local ratepayers to now defend this decision.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/05/21/forest-bird-challenges-councils-over-controversial-dam-project-in-court/