Landmark freshwater ruling stands as ECan and irrigator drop appeals
Environment Canterbury and Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Ltd (ALIL) have withdrawn their appeals against our historic High Court ruling, cementing an important legal victory for freshwater protection.
The 2023 ruling found that Environment Canterbury had acted unlawfully when it granted ALIL consent to discharge nitrate pollution across 177,000 hectares of farmland. The Court found that the council had breached the Resource Management Act by failing to adhere to statutory limits designed to protect water quality.
The Environmental Law Initiative, which brought the legal challenge, says the decision sets a strong precedent: councils must properly consider the cumulative impacts of nitrate pollution and cannot sidestep the bottom lines for freshwater health enshrined in the law.
“Regional councils have a responsibility to the public to uphold environmental protections and ensure our freshwater ecosystems are safeguarded,” says ELI’s senior researcher, Anna Sintenie.
The ruling has provoked pushback from major irrigators, including Central Plains Water, which has publicly criticised the decision. Yet nitrate levels in Canterbury’s groundwater continue to rise, with 59% of monitored wells showing increasing trends between 2013 and 2023. In Central Plains Water’s most recent status report, nitrate trigger levels were exceeded at ten surface water sites during the 2022–23 period—an increase on previous years.
Meanwhile, Environment Canterbury is now nearing the end of a re-hearing of ALIL’s consent, as required by the High Court. An interim staff report has recommended refusing the discharge consent, as the pollution resulting from the scheme would likely breach the statutory lines for freshwater.
ELI says the case is not about stopping irrigation schemes, but about ensuring irrigation schemes meet pollution limits set under the law. This could mean fewer cows and lower nitrate discharges—but it also means healthier rivers, safer drinking water, and long-overdue compliance with environmental standards.
Despite the legal clarity of the Court’s decision, ELI warns that political interference threatens to undo these decades-old protections. In the wake of the judgment, the Government amended the RMA to weaken key pollution limits, in response to pressure from industry groups. The changes were made without public consultation.
It was a move that Sintenie called “a huge backward step, acting against the public interest and our clean and green image.”
The final decision on the ALIL consent is expected soon.
“Herein lies the conundrum for Environment Canterbury. Where they have allowed farming under the ALIL irrigation scheme to operate outside the law, they now need to apply these pollution limits.
“While irrigators, the Government, and others are lining up to take the power out of Environment Canterbury’s hands, we say it’s more important than ever, that Council delivers to protect our freshwater, as the law requires of it,” says Sintenie.