Newsletters

7 September 1999

Dear Shareholder

Construction Progress:

We tested the fish screens, intake and automatic gates at the end of August and I am happy to advise that, subject to some fine tuning of the flotation, they worked well and would appear to be capable of passing the design flow. We had attempted to test the fish screens earlier in the month but at that time, however, we were not able to get the intake to pivot from its vertically parked position to lie horizontally into the flow of the Waimakariri River. It is now believed that excess flotation in the pivot channel was the cause and we do not anticipate any difficulty in finding a long term solution.

We were not able to run the intake for as long as we would have preferred because our Resource Consent to test the system requires that we not dump water into the Eyre River until the water level in a nearby designed well, drops to at least two metres below ground level. Still much too high.

Construction progress of the Distributary Races is proceeding as per schedule and we expect that almost all of the remaining race widening will be completed by the end of September. The exceptions are those races that are a part of the McKeighs Creek solution for our "East of Cust" shareholders, some areas that will be supplied by a race through the Eyrewell Forest, and a few other minor parts of the system.

Areas north of the Eyre and Cust Rivers may face some restriction of supply because we cannot install the siphons under these rivers until they stop flowing. Having said that, though, it will be possible to send a considerable amount of water through the existing siphons and we expect this to be adequate until more than about 70% of our shareholders in the affected areas wish to take their full entitlement. We expect to have the siphons installed well before that situation arises – these are expected to take only a short time to install and the pipes are to hand.

Annual General Meeting:

A formal notice of this historic event will be sent to all share and quota holders in early October but we have now determined that it will be held in the Cust community Centre, on 28^th October at 7.30pm. Light refreshments and finger food will follow the Annual Meeting.

Official Opening:

The opening of the existing water race system by the Prime Minster of the time, Richard John Seddon, in 1896, was quite an event in the district and it has been well recorded in various minutes, journals, reports and photographs now held in the Cust and Oxford Museums and elsewhere. We believe that the new irrigation scheme will have an impact on the district every bit as beneficial as did the bringing of stock water to the area over a hundred years ago, momentous though that assuredly was. For this reason we intend to do our best to ensure that our Formal Opening will be appropriately celebrated and recorded.

The Official Opening Ceremony, to which we are expecting about 500 invited guests (including Shareholders) to attend will be held at Browns Rock on Saturday, 30 October 1999 at 5.30pm. This will be followed by refreshments and dinner and an evening of social activity, the finer details of which have still to be settled. You will be issued a formal invitation and will be required to show this on admittance to the "after opening function". Watch this space.

Operations Pamphlet

We are well along with the preparation of this document and hope to have it ready to send to all operators by the end of September. A very tight deadline. It will contain a wealth of information that will help you manage your water entitlement and the obligations we have to each other, to the stock water race users and to the District and Regional Councils. It will also detail all vital information such as to who and how to call for help, after hours answering procedures, the setting up of a WIL Website for daily situation reports, and so on.

Culvert Design:

I have had many queries from interested people expressing the view that because the culverts are all set low into the ground with a cover over them of at least 600mm, they will gravel or silt up in winter when water flows will be reduced to only as much water (1.0 cumec), as is required for the district’s stock.

The design and the cover of all our culverts is as required by the New Zealand Roading Authority, is a New Zealand Standard, and conforms to the manufacturers requirements for these pipes. They are designed to be self cleaning at optimum flow and, although some minor problems may occur at other times, we expect them to be self cleaning as soon as the flows return to normal in summer. Their performance is expected to improve after a short settling–in period when the stability of the races themselves will improve as the existing rough "as constructed" surface is smoothed by water flow, and vegetation growth within the race takes place.

All of our east coast irrigation schemes carry widely fluctuating flows. They all have identical culverts installations to ours, very few of them causing any problem. This isn’t to say that we expect ours to be totally trouble free, but we believe that any problems we do identify will be relatively minor and will either be corrected or disappear after a season or two.

We have all of the relevant engineering standards and an explanation by Dave Attewell on file as to how it is all supposed to work. If you would like a copy please call Mrs Shirley Farrell at the Oxford Service Centre 312 4014.

Water Storage - Maximising the "high summer" reliability of supply:

The price demanded by the Hurunui District Council for us to purchase and move Lake Sumner was too high in our view and as a consequence we have reverted to our original plan to seek local options for the storage of between 12 million and 20 million cubic metres of water. We are presently evaluating proposals from three Consultants for this work and expect to appoint one of them at our September Board meeting. We are making an application to the Government’s "Contestable Funding for Irrigation Developments" programme through Agmardt, to pay about two thirds of the cost of this investigation. Even if our funding application is unsuccessful we intend to proceed with the study.

Annual Water Charge:

It now looks probable that large parts of the scheme will be declared operational on 1 October 1999, even though significant clean up, fencing and grassing work will remain unfinished as of that date.

Thus, we expect to send out our first invoices in late September for payment by 20th October 1999. You will be invoiced on the following basis.

1 to 10 share Pay in Full October

11 to 50 shares Pay 50% October, January

Over 50 shares Pay 1/3^rd October, January, April

A Direct Debit option will be included with the invoice.

Water Race Layout:

We have had several queries from persons interested to know where "their" races come from and go to. The attached map is admittedly small scale, but many of you may recognise the locations of your property. If you cannot do so we have a large scale map in the Oxford Service Centre that you are welcome to pore over.

Looking forward to seeing you all on the 28^th and 30^th October.

Best Wishes

WAIMAKARIRI IRRIGATION LIMITED

WIL

Waimakariri Irrigation Limited

LEASING OF SHARES

The following shareholders have indicated that they would like to lease their shares to other shareholders. If you would like to lease shares please contact the following shareholders:

Name Address Telephones Shares to Lease

Mr R Rossiter 2183 South Eyre Road 312 5488 20

Mr B Fowler Worlingham Road 312 5683 9

Mr A J Chapman North Eyre Road 312 5023 31

Please understand that all leasing has to be approved by the Company and the appropriate lease agreement form completed.

WIL

Waimakariri Irrigation Limited

LEASING OF SHARES

The following shareholders have indicated that they would like to lease their shares to other shareholders. If you would like to lease shares please contact the following shareholders:

Name Address Telephones Shares to Lease

Mr R Rossiter 2183 South Eyre Road 312 5488 20

Mr B Fowler Worlingham Road 312 5683 9

Mr A J Chapman North Eyre Road 312 5023 31

Please understand that all leasing has to be approved by the Company and the appropriate lease agreement form completed.