Nine consents in Hawke's Bay allow groundwater to be taken for water bottling. Photo: 123rf
While residents in Napier and Hastings are being asked to conserve water under Level 2 restrictions this summer, there is unlikely to be any disruption to water bottling operations in Hawke's Bay.
The region is home to nine consents that allow water to be taken for bottling.
In total, the plants are authorised to take roughly 4 million cubic metres of water from aquifers in Hawke's Bay each year (3,990,969.14 m/3 per year to be specific).
That's the equivalent of 1600 Olympic-sized swimming pools, if they choose to take the maximum amount, though many don't.
Napier's total urban water consumption for the year from 1 July 2023, to 30 June 2024, was 10,107,940 cubic metres.
The nine plants are not just water bottlers - some also use some of their consented take for irrigation, to manufacture food, to manufacture other beverages such as sports water and to use for their staff facilities.
A spokesperson for the Hawke's Bay Regional Council said consent to take groundwater generally did not require reductions to abstraction - i.e., water restrictions - unless the consents were affecting and had been tied to surface water flows.
"The takes are subject to the new provisions that have been introduced by the proposed TANK Plan Change (Plan Change 9)," the spokesperson said.
"This proposed plan change establishes the Heretaunga Plains aquifer as an over-allocated resource and seeks to reduce the amount allocated from it."
HBRC's website says no more water will be allocated in the Heretaunga Plains for any use "so we are extremely unlikely to have any more applications for water bottling".
No one who holds a resource consent is charged for water, whether they're a New Zealand resident or a foreign investor, the council spokesperson said.
"However, we do charge for the work Council does to process resource consent applications and we charge consent holders 35 percent of the costs we incur to monitor the effect on the environment of their resource use.
"New Zealand law does not allow regional councils to charge for water."
An example of how the consents play out in real life is New Zealand Miracle Water Limited in Elwood Rd, Hastings.
The plant's head office is based in Auckland and the water they draw is used for water bottling and staff facilities.
Council documents show that for the year from 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016 the plant was consented to take 420,000 cubic metres. From 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017 its take rose to 670,000 cubic metres.
Then from 1 July 2017, it almost doubled its original take to 820,000 cubic metres within a 12-month period, which has continued in consecutive calendar years.
However, water use data returned to HBRC indicates that the maximum recorded annual use for the Miracle Water consent was 168,575 m3 for the 2023/2024 water year (being 1 July to 30 June), roughly one-fifth of the water the company is entitled to take.
In 2015 consents to take water for bottling from the Heretaunga Plains aquifer, the region's most significant water source, sparked protests and rallies against the move.
Former HBRC regional chairman Rex Graham - who was voted into the role the year after the controversy - said water security was then, and is now, the biggest challenge facing Hawke's Bay.
"How do we ensure water security for our horticulture and agricultural industries and our towns?" Graham said.
"We have to allow for growth and that means allowing people to take from the aquifer. It does replenish itself. If growers take a lot of water you often see the streams drop. That's why we need dams for environmental flow.
"In the long term we are probably going to see drier weather with climate change. We need to have water storage, not just for growers but for the economy.
"We have a massive cluster industry in Hawke's Bay supporting our agriculture and horticulture industries. I'm not just talking about pickers and forklift drivers. There are lawyers, accountants - it's huge.
"To protect our society and the economy from climate change we have to take the politics and emotion out of it and work together."
Although retired, Graham says he is still deeply interested in the environment.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
