CLEANING UP OUR WATERWAYS
also recently highlighted how our two biggest industries, dairy and tourism, were now being placed at odds.
The Tourism Export Council, a lobby group, has joined more than a dozen other groups in pushing a proposed rescue plan. How bad is the picture? Some previous government monitoring reports have suggested up to two thirds of checked sites were unsafe for swimming.
A more recent stocktake, published by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand this year, found many waterways were now affected by harmful E. coli, and three-quarters of monitored native fish species are nearing extinction.
By 2008, the extent of wetlands was only 10 per cent of what it was before the arrival of humans and, in some areas, this has led to a loss of biodiversity and natural function.
But agriculture wasn’t all to blame, with data showing some of the worst water quality could be attributed to urban pollution.
Levels of the harmful bacteria E.coli were 22 times higher in urban areas and nearly 10 times higher in pastoral rivers, compared with rivers in native forest areas.
The report also included dismal trends for two key nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus, which increase the risk of river-choking algal blooms and are often linked to agricultural inten- The National-led government goes into the election with a new National Policy Statement ( NPS) on Freshwater Management it says confirms its target of 90 per cent of large rivers and lakes being swimmable by 2040.
Changes it has just folded into the overhauled NPS carried more demanding standards of water quality for swimming, new requirements for ensuring the ecological health of waterways, more explicit requirements for considering economic wellbeing within limits, tougher requirements for limiting nutrients and algae and the provision for Te Mana o te Wai arising from work with iwi freshwater leaders. Te mana o te wai, which can be understood as “the quality and vitality of water”, comes amid increasing recognition of Maori environmental values in environmental management, and the significance of fresh water to Maori.
“Swimmability” ratings — based on quality at least 80 per cent of time — include four statistical tests used for determining which rivers are excellent, good, fair, intermittent or poor, and clarifies the risk as less than 1, 2, 3 and 7 per cent respectively.
That goal sits upon regional councils being required to set regional targets and regularly report on achieving them, and 1000km of waterways to be improved to a higher grading each year until 2040.
Regional councils would have a new process to manage in-stream levels of nitrogen and phosphorus and nutrients would need to be limited to control algae growth.
The cost of meeting the new water quality improvements was estimated at $2 billion, falling upon farmers to fence off waterways and reticulate stock water, councils in improving their wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and taxpayers.
The cost came on top of the $400m the Government has invested in
HView our policies interactive at insights. nzherald.co.nz $400m into irrigation schemes, which they argue will drive further dairy intensification and pollution.
Under its 12-point freshwater policy, Labour says it would crack down on polluters, make all rivers and lakes swimmable “within a generation” and extend freshwater quality standards.
A new national policy would remove as a “permitted activity” any further increases in farming intensity — including more livestock, irrigation or fertiliser per hectare — and require rivers and lakes be clean enough for people to swim in during summer without getting sick.
The party would adopt freshwater quality standards that covered pathogens, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, periphyton and macroinvertebrate health, with bottom lines to reduce diffuse pollution of freshwater by set deadlines, and demand