Farming may 'never be the same again' after planned water clean-up

Thursday, 5 September 2019

Environment Minister David Parker and Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor announce the Government’s action plan for healthy waterways.

The days of dairy conversions on the Canterbury Plains appear numbered with the Government's declaration of war on dirty water and its plans for a rapid clean-up.

On Thursday morning, Environment Minister David Parker released the National Environment Standard on Freshwater Management and a rewritten national policy statement aimed at improving water quality for rivers, lakes and wetlands within five years and fixing them within a generation.

Farming is in the Government's sights, with a proposal that from June there would be no new dairy conversions or irrigation allowed without evidence that will not increase water pollution.

'New Zealand's pastoral industry will never be the same again,' Lincoln University agri-food systems professor Keith Woodford said if the proposal goes ahead.

* North Canterbury nitrate reductions may cause financial ruin, some farmers say

* Will ECan's proposed nitrate reductions make dairy farming untenable?

Cows on a farm near Glenavy South Canterbury (file photo).

* Dairy gold rush is over as nutrient limits put brake on Canterbury dairy conversions

* Environmentalists 'alarmed' but Environment Canterbury says water survey results 'expected'

* Cantabrians may have higher cancer risk from poor drinking water**

Federated Farmers environment and water spokesperson Chris Allen said some Canterbury farmers were 'aghast at what it means'.

He had been reassuring them the announcements were just part of a discussion document.

'At least, I'm led to believe it is not a done and dusted deal.'

Canterbury sharemilker Nigel Gardiner with a handful of freshwater mussels discovered when improvements were being made to Dry Stream and a wetland on a Culverden farm where he sharemilks cows.

Under the plans, Canterbury landowners will be required to meet new bottom lines for nutrients of 1 milligram of dissolved inorganic nitrogen per litre of water (1mg/l) in rivers.

That would require a reduction of more than 50 per cent in nitrogen loads across much of Central and mid-Canterbury, although 'further analysis' would be carried out to understand the full impact of that.

Dairy conversions have declined in Canterbury since 2013, with 10 consented last year compared to 50 during some of the peak dairy boom years.

Woodford said the proposal would not just affect dairy farming.

Burgess's Stream near Eyreton, North Canterbury, is the site of the first focus for Waimakariri Irrigation Ltd's biodiversity project.

'It is going to require a total transformation of the New Zealand dairy industry, but also major changes to sheep and beef farming. Plant-based agriculture and horticulture will also be heavily impacted.'

Farmers on the north bank of the Waimakariri River are already being asked to make major changes to their operations.

An Environment Canterbury (ECan) plan change sets out tough reduction targets for nitrates over the next 60 years, in an effort to stop them seeping below the river and potentially affecting Christchurch's drinking water supply.

The Govenrment's Action for Healthy Waterways plan will make things even more difficult for Canterbury dairy farmers struggling to come to terms with Environment Canterbury's proposed staged nitrate reductions.

Some farmers there have said the staged cuts will cause financial ruin and destroy rural communities.

ECan strategy and planning director Katherine Trought said the Government's announcements had no immediate effect on Plan Change 7 of the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan, out for consultation until September 13.

However, future plan changes, which had not already entered the Resource Management Act (RMA) process, would need to consider the national policy statement (NPS) changes.

'If, however, a new NPS for freshwater management is gazetted before the independent hearing panel delivers its recommendations on Plan Change 7, the panel will consider the contents and relevance of the NPS when preparing its recommendations.'

Scientists are trying to toilet train dairy cows.

Ngāi Tahu freshwater spokesman Dr Te Maire Tau said the lack of acknowledgement by the Crown of its Treaty of Waitangi responsibilities was concerning.

More than three-quarters of the country's irrigated land is in Canterbury and Otago.

'Ngāi Tahu has spent the past decade investigating water issues both locally and internationally. We know it is possible to develop a science-based system that satisfies iwi, recreational users and the farmers.'

A Waitangi Tribunal report last week said the RMA was not 'Treaty compliant' and there was a need for Māori to have greater participation in management and decision-making of the resource.

'These findings are not reflected in the document,' he said.

Allen said reductions of the scale proposed would be enough to trigger land-use changes.

'These standards they are talking about are going to be a step too far [to deal with] with current technology. It might be a good time to talk about genetic engineering with new rye grasses that lower nitrates.'

ECan councillor Lan Pham said the Government clearly wanted to move quickly.

'New Zealand has been well overdue for a government that can recognise we pollute and damage the environment at our own peril.'

Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said Canterbury had been 'at the heart of the country's freshwater collapse'.

'If the public back the right options – strong rules – then Canterbury could see the intensification and freshwater wreckage finally come to a halt. The sooner we turn off the pollution tap, the sooner we can reverse the freshwater crisis we are in.'

Recent total nitrogen levels in mg/l averaged across five years for some Canterbury rivers:

- Avon - 1.5

- Halswell - 3.6

- Heathcote - 2.1

- Hinds - 6.8

- Hurunui - 0.4

- Kaiapoi (before township) - 7

- Selwyn (Coe's Ford) - 5.9

- Waimakariri - 0.2