With two water bottling plants in the Hawke's Bay area recently being granted water consent to draw millions of litres of water a year that is destined for the overseas market, it has local iwi and hapū concerned over the numberof water consents being granted to draw from the areas main aquifer.
This site is owned by One Pure International, and is being turned into a 24 hour a day water bottling plant, that will fill around 30,000 bottles of water an hour, with consent granted to draw just over 400,000 cubic metres of water from the Heretaunga aquifer.
Iain Maxwell of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council says "There's no indication at the moment that the takes that in the area where these water bottling plants that suggests there are concerns."
However there are concerns about the amount of water that is being drawn from Hawke's Bay's main aquifer, as another water bottling company Elwood Road Holdings can draw around 900,000 cubic metres a year that is also destined for overseas.
Currently, the Hawkes Bay Regional Council has granted around 1700 consents to draw from the Heretaunga aquifer, in total thats 150 million cubic metres a year. However the council has never had any policy in place that sets a limit on water allocations, a policy the council says it is working on.
The council says the takes are small in comparison to the estimated 1 billion cubic metres stored in the aquifer, but locals iwi and hapū are not convinced.