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A Northland environmentalist says it's time for councils to stop protecting the future profit of a company that has a right to bottle water from Poroti Springs.
Millan Ruka, who is a member of the hapu that owns the springs, says Zodiac Holdings, now known as New Zealand Spring Company, has had special treatment ever since it bought a former Whangarei District Council bore site for a knock-down price.
He says a building consent for a bottling plant is set to expire and shouldn't be renewed without going through a full hearing.
The company has also been allowed to increase the length of its consent to draw water from five to 35 years, and to increase the volume from 500 to 2500 cubic metres a day, all from what the hapu consider is a private bore designed to steal its resource.
"Yeah they've made all these gains to be able to establish Zodiac and offer it overseas for sale and yet they still haven't taken water," Mr Ruka says.
The hapu is happy to provide its water for Whangarei, but it balks at the idea of it being used to enrich overseas companies.
Poroti Springs is one of the main cases that will be raised in evidence at a Waitangi tribunal hearing on Maori water rights in September.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
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