By Sue Newman  March 12 2010

here are 500 jobs around Canterbury that no one would like to have right now.

The people sitting in those 500 chairs are all paid out of Environment Canterbury's coffers and right now, those employees and their employer are on shaky ground.

And for the human capital involved in the ECan versus Canterbury mayors, versus central Government debacle, that's not a nice place to be.

For years individuals and individual local authorities have grumbled about the cumbersome, slow grinding ECan wheels. There has been strong criticism of the arrogant and bureaucratic way the organisation has done its business; there has been huge discontent.

It's been the organisation we've all loved to hate.

The authority has been overseen by elected representatives from around Canterbury, it has been managed by appointees and it has been run by hundreds of worker bees.

It is those worker bees for whom the average Cantabrian will have huge sympathy right now.

They are simply cogs, many of them highly skilled cogs, within the giant ECan wheel.

They've largely done what they were employed to do within the white paper and red tape mountain that was the environmental agency.

But proving that when small forces unite they can topple a giant, the local authorities' voices were heard on the Wellington hill.

 Action, when it came, was swift and as it plays out, is likely to be deadly.

Yesterday, the Ashburton District Council was given an insight into just how deadly that action could be, when Environment Minister Nick Smith stopped off in town.

ECan as we know it, is about to disappear.

The culture within the organisation is so bad, that only a total overhaul of the way it is run can effect change.

That means its elected members are out of jobs and government appointed managers will move in for as long as it takes to turn things around.

Smith was short on detail, but he clearly has a plan, most of it likely to be uncomfortable for those at the top of the ECan tree.

Reaching this point has clearly meant an appalling performance threshold had to be crossed.

ECan has clearly crossed it.

But while its present is grim, its future need not be.

The carrot is there – change the culture, change attitudes, become can do rather than can't do and maybe, just maybe it will feature in the local body election printouts in 2013.