The key to better water has to be fewer cows
TWOTHIRDS of all our rivers are now unswimmable and threequarters of New Zealand’s native freshwater fish species are at risk of becoming extinct.
The principal culprit without doubt is dairy farming. And this from the Environment Ministry and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Science, not some fringe eco group.
Effluent from dairy herds floods our waterways daily, and the massive increase in toxic algae bloom ensures our water is not only unsafe to swim in or drink, but in some instances you cannot even touch it without risk of serious infection.
Despite successive government assurances, our water quality is not improving.
In the future, there will be no escape to a bach, campsite, beach house, inland crib or mountain retreat that is unaffected by an increasing tide of nitraterich effluent.
The pollution we face is a deliberated and nationwide externality. The dairy industry makes profit and New Zealand society bears the cost of cleaning up the waste.
The solution, however, is simple. As Environment Minister David Carter once suggested in a moment of political bravado: fewer cows and more horticultural diversification.
Clean water is an issue that transcends divisive political loyalties, levels of income and urbanrural divides.
For no interest group, no dairy farmer, no rural or city dweller, no shareholder nor any other New Zealander will be unaffected by the decline in our water quality.
The example of Havelock North, and the death of four people and 5000 New Zealanders with gastroenteritis, ostensibly but inconclusively due to sheep faeces, has not taught us a sufficient lesson.
We are not safe. In the future, we and our children and grandchildren will suffer as streams, lakes and rivers become asphyxiated with algae bloom and our drinking water, already chlorinated, turns increasingly toxic. David Stillaman
Maori Hill
Rahui
DAVID Higgins, a ‘‘traditional leader’’, is reported as saying (ODT, 14.2.19) that ‘‘a rahui will be imposed from the south bank of the Kakanui’’. . . to Campbells Bay.
By what law, spiritual or temporal, is Mr Higgins dictating public activity? Bruce Mason
Ranfurly
[This letter was referred to Te Runanga o Moeraki for comment, but it declined to respond.]
Eagles concert
CONGRATULATIONS to the ODT for managing to report on the Eagles concert (4.3.19) without once mentioning the money Dunedin made as a result of the concert.
Even the Otago Chamber of Commerce reported on the quality of the experiences of people in the city, rather than monetary gain for the city.
This a very welcome change and I hope it continues. Orma Bradfield
Broad Bay