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Everywhere we went, it was the same.
Wow, people would say, this water issue is hotting up. Boiling over, more like. We'd be out doing one story but all anyone wanted to talk about was water.
To be fair, in the past it's been hard for the media and the 550,000 people in the Canterbury region to keep tabs on the water issue. There's been fighting and squabbling between elected councillors at Environment Canterbury, tension between Ecan and the mayors scattered around the region, expensive and complicated legal battles over irrigation schemes that go on forever.
The Ministry for the Environment has a national Land and Water Forum looking at water. A whole lot of folk round the country are arguing about their local Natural Resources Regional Plans - which also look at water.
And, after years of work, we also have the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. Its aim is to get all interested parties sitting round a table and working out compromises, so we can have more irrigation - but there are trade offs to protect the environment. The magic words here are "working collaboratively". As many people have said, it's complicated. All the meetings, the paper work, the talk has been enough to make the eyes glaze over.
And while all this has been happening, the sprinklers on hundreds of huge irrigation systems stretching across Canterbury's water-starved plains have been quietly whirring away. Hundreds of consents have been granted to farmers to irrigate their land. And hundreds more consents have been granted so they can use irrigation systems to spread dairy effluent onto their pastures. It makes lovely lush grass to feed all the cows. Behind the shelter belts the Canterbury Plains have been slowly turning from brown to green.
Well, things have certainly snapped into focus now.
Fourteen Ecan councillors have been sacked . In the end it was swift and decisive. The Beehive news conference had only just finished when word spread that government trouble-shooter Dame Margaret Bazley was on her way to take control. Those ousted claimed it was all about power. Power and greed and water, all about a National government making it easier for traditional National supporters to get their hands on more water.
And if people think there's pressure on our water resources now, it's only going to increase. Farmers want to double the amount of land that's being irrigated, to bring wealth and jobs to both Canterbury and the country. With the help of a few storage dams, they're convinced this can be achieved without harming the environment.
But the guardians of our wild rivers and waterways are not convinced. They believe legislative changes will leave them without a voice. They're right, really. For the next three years the people of Canterbury won't have much say at all.
Accusations are still flying in relation to how all this has come about. But one thing we do know - the decision makers will be Dame Margaret Bazley and the group of commissioners she will help appoint over the next few weeks. How many there are and who they are will be closely scrutinised. Will they be pro-development? Will they care about the environment?
Once in place these commissioners will hold the power. And the rest of us will be relegated to spectators, as the biggest water fight of all time is played out in our backyard.
Read more of Vicki Wilkinson-Baker's blogs.
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