Upper Waikato Zone - River and catchment asset management plan

Report: TR 2004/24

Author: Jon Palmer

This plan covers river and catchment management assets administered by Waikato Regional Council within the Upper Waikato Management Zone of the Waikato region. Several individual catchment scheme asset plans have been in place since 1998. These plans have now been reviewed and combined into this single zone plan.

The review was also prompted by the need to include the Waikato River and Catchment Services provisions (Project Watershed) into the earlier documents, the need to include river management assets into a plan, as well as meeting the requirement for five yearly reviews of asset plans. Waikato Regional Council Clean Stream Project provisions have also been included in this zone based plan.

The Upper Waikato Management Zone covers the catchment area above Mangakino extending to the Lake Taupo Control Gates. The Plan covers the earlier catchment control schemes including the Torepatutahi, Waiehu and Pueto schemes (known as the Reporoa Schemes), Paeroa Range Scheme (including Whirinaki Scheme), Whakamaru scheme and numerous individual soil conservation and river related projects.

The Plan identifies maintenance programmes, management strategies, performance standards and funding arrangements for catchment and river assets. The Plan is an agreement between Waikato Regional Council, property owners and local communities as to how existing scheme assets are to be maintained into the future. It is based on the consultation undertaken over a period of time including the ongoing deliberations of Upper Waikato River and Catchment Liaison Subcommittee.

Further capital work is required to achieve complete zone coverage. These works were identified under the Waikato River and Catchment Services Project (Project Watershed) and are now incorporated into the zone asset plan.

The Plan has been prepared in accordance with the Regional Asset Management Strategy adopted by Waikato Regional Council in 1994, the Resource Management Act (1991) and the Local Government Act (2002).