Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment - Te Kaitiaki Taiao a Te Whare Pāremata

Information needs of the RMA: a review of the information used for discharge permit applications

Report summary

How is information used in decision making under the RMA? An investigation of the manner in which information provided by the applicant, the affected parties or submitters and the council is used to make decisions, with specific reference to discharge permit applications.

• Commissioner's preface
• Executive summary
• Findings & recommendations 

Findings & recommendations

Information from the applicant

The applicant must provide a description of the proposed activity, the actual or potential environmental effects, and the mitigation of any adverse effects. The preparation of the application and the associated assessment of environmental effects (AEE) for these 16 consent applications ranged from clearly inadequate to excellent:

• applicants for small and medium sized activities either do not appreciate the effects their activity might have on the environment or do not appreciate the information requirements
• applicants with complex activities or where activities are likely to have a significant effect on the environment are more likely to provide the required information
• requests for further information were generally to fill significant information gaps or to advise of design changes.

It is recommended to the Minister for the Environment that additional resources are made available to the Ministry for the Environment to assist applicants in understanding the information requirements of the resource consent processes.

Information from submitters or affected parties

Councils sought information from potentially affected parties or from submitters. All three councils have established regular consultation with tangata whenua and key stakeholder groups.

The submitters considered the information was inadequate for them to assess the effects on the environment for seven out of eight applications. There were several instances of better environmental results being achieved because of the information or concerns raised by submitters or affected parties.

It was found that:

• consultation with affected parties for non-notified applications is assisting decision making
• information gained through consultation with submitters was used in setting conditions where necessary.

Information from councils

The information added by councils included:

• the results of monitoring previous consents
• compliance information from surveys of dairy farms
• background water resources data
• the performance of wetlands for sewage treatment purposes
• the effect of the discharge on nutrient levels in a receiving water
• the potential for adverse effects on values and significance for iwi and acceptable mitigation measure
• rainfall intensity events and runoff data.

Use of information by decision makers

The decision maker is using the information presented prior to and at the hearing. The extent of information required varies with the nature of the activity and the scale of effects. Where new activities are proposed the information requirements are more extensive than that for replacement consents. Where there is considerable uncertainty about the nature of the effects on the environment, councils require additional information to assist in decision making.

It was found that:

• information requirements were appropriate for the majority of the consents.

Therefore, in these examples of resource consents for discharges to freshwater, the contention that the RMA is "information hungry" was not substantiated.

It is recommended that the Minister for the Environment when considering any fundamental changes to the Resource Management Act 1991 involving restricting the information required under the Act, be mindful of the importance of obtaining sufficient and necessary information from a range of sources in order to properly fulfil the purpose of the Act.