Environment Canterbury is seeking a more equitable mix of funding for its water investigations and monitoring work - also known as the State of the Environment monitoring - which is required to understand the nature of Canterbury's freshwater resource. 

These costs are currently fully funded by general rates. From 1 July 2010 the Council intends to recover a proportion (30%) of the cost of this work from consent holders (water take or discharge to land or water).

Implementation of the decision (originally intended to occur in July 2009) was deferred by 12 months to 1 July 2010 to allow more time for consultation with consent holders and stakeholders on how the costs should be apportioned. 

A series of 10 consultation meetings were held in December 2009 around Canterbury and water consent holders were invited to submit feedback by Friday 15 January 2010.

An Environment Canterbury Working Group has reviewed the feedback from the consultation meetings and submissions and made recommendations to the Council on the implementation of State of the Environment water management cost recovery.

The 2010/11 Draft Annual Plan was available for public consultation between 27 March and 30 April 2010.