Anxiety about water quality in the Manuherikia River brought an impassioned presentation to the Central Otago District Council meeting last week. Central Otago Environmental Society member Phil Murray raised the group’s concern about a proposal for the council to present a local Bill to Parliament to rebuild and expand Falls Dam. "Water quality in the Manuherikia catchment has been declining over the past decade and longer, in line with a quite rapid and significant land use facilitated by water extraction from the catchment." The group accepted the dam had to be replaced but it did not agree that a new one should be three times the size, he said. It was hard to understand the justification for building a larger dam using ratepayers’ and taxpayers’ money.…