Tough new rules to fix NZ’s waterways
The Government is proposing stricter standards to improve New Zealand’s waterways, cracking down on farming practices and increasing regulation.
The health and wellbeing of water will be put first when making decisions, ‘‘providing for essential human needs, such as drinking water, will be second, and all other uses will follow’’.
Yesterday, Environment Minister David Parker released the National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management and the Government’s rewritten National Policy Statement, which aimed to improve water quality for rivers, lakes and wetlands within five years and fix them within a generation.
The raft of proposals included a mandate for councils to have a freshwater plan in place no later than 2025. It will also see higher standards for swimming, with a greater effort put into reducing contamination. The proposals also include measures to improve farming practices, where needed, to stop things getting worse by ensuring all farmers and growers have a plan to manage risks to freshwater, by 2025.
The plan is to tightly restrict any further intensification of land use through interim measures until all regions have working freshwater management plans.
From June 2020 changes such as new irrigation or conversion to dairying will only happen where there is evidence it will not increase pollution.
In catchments with high nitrate/nitrogen levels there will be a reduction in nitrogen loss within five years and there will be more fencing and wider setbacks to keep stock out of waterways.
Standards for intensive winter grazing, feedlots, and stock holding areas will also be applied.
The National Environmental Standard for Sources of Human Drinking Water will also be amended, with tighter management of land use in areas that are sources of drinking water supply.
The bar will be raised on freshwater ecosystem health to protect threatened species and habitats.
The plan sets out that land and water resources will be managed in a way that helps indigenous species thrive. There will also be improvements to setting minimum water flows and reporting on water use with better management of water allocation.
In an effort to protect urban and rural wetlands and streams, there will be no more draining or development of wetlands.
‘‘Our rivers, lakes and wetlands are under serious threat after years of neglect . . . If we don’t fix things now they only get worse and will be more expensive to fix,’’ Parker said.
The plan was being met with support from Water New Zealand, Fish and Game NZ, Horticulture New Zealand, Greenpeace and Local Government New Zealand.
However, Federated Farmers said the proposals essentially threw farmers under the tractor and estimated large parts of rural New Zealand would have to abandon their reliance on the pastoral sector.