Friday, March 29, 2024

LETTER: Fences will hurt water quality

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We mainly beef and lamb farmers are being called upon by the powers that be to fence off vast areas of flowing water on hill country, thus creating monolithic empires of compliance and enforcement. 
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This is all to be done to prevent animals doing what they do in that water. Maybe, just perhaps, I think a couple factors just might have been overlooked.

Sunlight (ultra violet) combined with water turbulence (oxygenation oxidisation) is well-established as a sanitiser of fresh water.

Ozone, the most powerful natural oxidant (disinfectant) commercially available is generated naturally with sunlight, refraction and fast-flowing water.

Where ozone is present it destroys bacteria literally thousands of times faster than chlorine with a process known as lycing.

Would Beef + Lamb New Zealand or any of the many prolific bodies purporting to be there to help us farmers be prepared to investigate this then submit their findings to the country’s regional councils for consideration. NIWA is a good place to start.

I am confident a local school project could easily demonstrate that water flowing over shingle beds is more effective at cleansing water than meandering, shaded creeks or a weed-choked dam.

My concern is that while much of the proposed fencing will be costly it might also prove to be detrimental to water quality as the rivers become a series of shaded pools harbouring pathogens in sediment that will be released in times of flood, once again to be blamed on us farmers.

I write this with the knowledge gained from 12 years’ experience as a product development manager, most of which was spent in regards to the use of ozone for the treatment of water in cooling towers etc.

Hugh Rose

Rukuwai Farm

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