“We want you to start working under it now so any changes you need to make to how you farm can be done before 2020,” council manager of community liaison and education, Nicola McGrouther, told a roadshow meeting in Outram in early July, where 70 people crammed into the tiny West Taieri Memorial Hall.
“We will be helping you understand the changes with workshops and field days and we can come onfarm to answer your questions,” McGrouther said.
Plan Change 6A is described by council as an “effects-based, permitted activity approach to managing water contaminants which have minor effects on the quality of a river, lake, wetland or aquifer”.
It permits contaminant discharges including surface run-off, groundwater seepage and discharges from drains and races provided waterways meet the targets set by council and farms comply with rules on nitrogen loss to groundwater as calculated using Overseer (version 6).
Nitrogen limits using Overseer are set at 30kg N/ha/year for most of the region with 20kg N/ha/year in sensitive areas and 15kg N/ha/year in the large lake catchments.
Farms which do not meet Plan Change 6A requirements will need to apply for a consent.
Targets for nitrate-nitrite nitrogen, dissolved reactive phosphorus, ammonium, E.coli and turbidity have been set for the waterways in the five areas of the region – South Otago, Central and North Otago, the large lake tributaries, the small lakes, and the large lakes. Testing so far showed only areas in South Otago, the Upper Taieri, Kakanui and Dunedin city not meeting the standards.
“It really is unusual in New Zealand to get such good results in most of our lowland rivers.”
However, manager environmental services Martin King said the council was getting an increasing number of complaints from the public about water quality through its pollution hotline.
“In the 2013-14 season we had 330 reported water pollution incidents which is a record for us and 65% of these were for waterways in rural areas,” he said.
A strategy to enforce compliance of Plan Change 6A would be developed by council in the next 18 months but it would mean more visits to some dairy farms.
“At the moment you see us annually and everyone is treated the same. But soon we will be visiting more often those farms which don’t have infrastructure that meets best practice as well as those in sensitive areas where we know there are problems with water quality. Those farms will get more inspections until the water issues are dealt with,” he said.
Already in place are rules which prohibit discharges into waterways which cause odour, oil or grease films, scum, or foam. Effluent and run-off from silage pits are prohibited from entering waterways or land within 50m of a river, lake, wetland or bore. It was not allowed to be discharged to saturated soils or where it caused ponding.
‘It really is unusual in New Zealand to get such good results in most of our lowland rivers.’
Stock are allowed in waterways as long as they are not causing damage to the banks or the bed and there is no resulting visual change in the colour or clarity of the water.
Sediment entering waterways is also not allowed and council staff cautioned farmers to be careful when cleaning drains and to make sure they were drains and not rivers or streams.
“You do not need a consent if it is a drain but you do if it is a river,” King said.
He admitted it was a grey area, especially on the Taieri where many streams had been straightened and large drainage networks built.
“If you have any doubt ring us to check,” he said.
“Ask for advice before doing any work.”
Farmers will be expected to take their own water samples to make sure the waterways their land drains into comply with the targets set under Plan Change 6A. Information packs on how and where to take water samples were given out at the roadshow meetings.
“We can help you to identify the sites where you should be taking water samples on your farm,” McGrouther said.
“We are still to figure out how often you will need to take water samples but start now and see what they look like.”
More flights planned
Otago Regional Council has increased its aerial surveillance of farms this winter, checking whether farmers are breaching water quality rules while winter grazing.
Director of environmental monitoring and operations, Jeff Donaldson, said in past winters staff had usually done only one or two aerial reconnaissance surveys of the region but this year they would increase. He could not say how many would be carried out.
Staff would be looking for instances of sediment in waterways from pugging and bank collapses caused by stock grazing either beside or in a waterway.
Farmers needed to keep stock out of waterways, maintain riparian buffers between paddocks and waterways, and, where possible, strip graze on drier sections of paddocks and on the higher reaches first and then work down, Donaldson said.
