A clear shortage of evidence
in some creek while drinking the water. For the moment, let’s presume it’s from the creek they are standing in — a bit risky, I thought.
Let’s start with the “not enough being done” group. As I understand, a bucket-load of work has been done and continues to be done in an attempt to mitigate rural run-off to streams and rivers by landowners and local authorities in priority catchments, along with research, science and trials, in an attempt to clean up our rivers and streams.
What is missing is credible publicity on how this is happening and if it’s successful or unsuccessful in the short term — standing in a creek doesn’t do it for me or many others, I suggest.
Now for the water-swilling creek dwellers: I’m not sure what they wanted to portray to the general public, but I thought E. coli and nitrates were pretty hard to see in water. Maybe you just have to wait for that “crook guts” feeling to hit you.
Surely if you need to make an impact for the public at large on improving water quality, what’s wrong with showing water-quality test results before and after, completed by an independent laboratory, or photos of groups of landowners fencing and completing their riparian plantings and showing successful plantings done to date? The dairy industry talks of thousands of kilometres of riparian fencing being completed. Show some outside verification, as you might find not a big percentage of Joe Public believes the industry giants on these issues.
We do need to find a balance sooner rather than later, so let’s start listening to the other side before it’s too late.