Water grading ‘blindsiding taxpayers’
Nelson’s David Haynes believes water quality grades within the Government’s Clean Water Package are being used to ‘‘blindside’’ taxpayers.
The co-leader of the new NZ Outdoors Party and pastpresident of the Federation of Freshwater Anglers, Haynes said the draft package would allow agricultural industries to continue polluting.
It did not impose guidelines on the use of fertilisers, or include measures to lower nutrient levels — instead focussing on fencing stock from waterways.
‘‘Putting wire up is not going to stop nitrates going into waterways,’’ Haynes said.
And it only considered main stem rivers, with 45,000km of 425,000km of waterways included.
Nor were any restrictions placed on dairy or cropping intensification resulting from increased irrigation, he said.
Haynes was critical of having taxpayers fund hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for irrigation schemes, including through Crown Irrigation Investments, while also bank rolling the $100 million Freshwater Improvement Fund and the Government’s $500 million contribution to water quality since 2000.
‘‘It would seem to me those taxpayer funded subsidies are being used to create pollution. And yet taxpayers are be paying at the other end to clean it up.’’
Tasman District Council environment and planning manager Dennis Bush-King said the council already monitored most of the rivers highlighted in the package, along with the streams which ran into them.
However, the gradings of the rivers in the package were based on modelling and actual measurements might cast doubt on the validity of the gradings, he said.
Such was the case for Big River which flowed out of Kahurangi National Park on Tasman’s west coast. It was graded yellow under the package and council staff would have to be flown in to monitor it.
He said the council had anticipated the package’s arrival and reduced its number of river water quality monitoring sites from 53 to 28 in order to stay within budget while completing the required regular monitoring.
‘‘There are some areas now where we may not be doing the water quality monitoring done in the past.’’
Public submissions to the Clean Water Package close on April 28. For more see: mfe.govt.nz/fresh-water/ freshwater-management-reforms/ clean-water-package-2017