So I got curious about who had access to water from the Waikato River and I discovered that Wairakei Pastoral Ltd (dairy agribusiness) has access to more water than all of Auckland, at around 153 million litres PER DAY. WPL is owned by ten people. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/water-crisis-estate-owned-by-auckland-rich-listers-controls-more-water-from-waikato-river-than-city-itself/SY2R37WFAVA5MZHKBD75R4QHIA/

So Auckland, a city of 1.5 million people, is competing for drinking water with a dairy company owned by ten people - a dairy company that is using this vast amount of water to turn into milk, then drying it to make milk powder, in order to make money.

But to add insult to injury, in the process of turning millions of litres of water into money via dairy cows, Wairakei Pastoral produces masses of pollution which ends up in the Waikato River, upstream of where Auckland takes its drinking water.....

So in order to get clean drinking water for 1.5m people not only do we have to compete for access to water with ten people owning a dairy agribusiness, but we also have to pay $millions to clean their (and others) pollution from the Waikato River water before we can drink it.

This is all legal but I think this is wrong. The first call on water should be the environment, second should be people's drinking water.. commercial interests should be down the list. Instead they are at the top of the list. Plus they get to pollute our rivers for free

The reforms to environment management system that the Govt is introducing to replace the RMA need to prioritise people and planet ahead of profits. Because, as this case shows, currently it is upside down with profits before people and planet.

Note that Auckland has the right to take around 152 million litres per day from the Waikato River - about a third of Auckland's total supply in the last 12 months. If you want to see the table of water users provided to me by Waikato Regional Council this is it: