“The goal to make 90% of New Zealand’s lakes and rivers swimmable is a message for us all as New Zealanders to step up and do our bit to achieve that,” he said.
“We will have to look at it catchment by catchment, and it will require a pragmatic approach depending upon the catchment’s nature.”
He pointed to efforts in Manawatu to turn around water quality in the much maligned Manawatu River catchment.
“With [Horizons regional council’s] One Plan we had already started down the pathway before the National Policy Statement on water quality came in, and we are already seeing some positive results from the plan.”
Stewart said water quality across the 16 sites being monitored was improving.
“I know from a survey I did a few years ago that the improvements on dairy farms had reduced nitrogen losses by 100 tonnes a year into the catchment, and phosphate losses by 18t ‑ that is encouraging.”
Given the region had been engaged with the One Plan for less than a decade, it was a good achievement in a relatively short turnaround time, he said.
But collaboration through the Manawatu River Leaders’ Forum accord had played a big part in that success.
“Leaders from across the entire community get together to work on this,” Stewart said.
“Yes, there is a bit of heat exchanged, but we are engaged on working towards that same goal of water quality, regardless.”
Stewart felt it was almost inevitable drystock operators would face compulsory stock exclusions as the new standards required. But he said this too had to be pragmatic, with steep hill country the biggest challenge.
“And we also need cleaner, clearer data to take the emotion out of the water debate, and help more clearly understand what our farm environmental footprint really is, and be able to convey the improvements that are being made with real numbers.”
Keeping track of the Government’s fresh water management rules was becoming a challenge for farmers and regional councils, says the leader of an irrigation group.
Meantime, the policy manager for the Waitaki Irrigators Collective, Elizabeth Soal, said the Government’s Clean Water document was the third set of changes since 2011 to its National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.
“Essentially, what regional councils have been tasked with doing has become more complex and more is being asked of them by the Government because more complex regulations have been developed.”
Her group represents irrigators administered by the Otago Regional Council and Environment Canterbury (ECan), and while the Otago Land and Water plans were operative, ECan was still holding hearings on its proposed plan for the Lower Waitaki area.
“Regions are either currently in the process of setting limits and objectives for freshwater or working towards implementing those limits through regulations.”
Soal said farmers and irrigation groups would be watching how councils react to the latest iteration but had little idea what the impact of the changes would be.
Media focus on last month’s announcement was on swimmability of water, but Soal said that was just one of a draft of changes.
She said the new regulations required more comprehensive monitoring, including tracking of E.coli levels, monitoring of macro-invertebrate communities, indigenous flora and fauna, water takes and sources of contaminants.
The current measurements to determine swimmability used annual medians and percentiles to assess risk to human health but this could be influenced by frequent spikes above and below that median.
“The proposed amendments provide greater clarity around how water will be assessed and monitored and also, in some cases, requires councils and communities to ultimately improve water quality in terms of recreation, over time,” Soal said.
Reducing E.coli levels, the measure for swimmability, required a community effort because it can be sourced from birdlife and human waste, as well as farm stock.
Collective members already monitored water quality and followed farm environment management plans that required riparian management and fencing, which Soal said was central to reducing bacterial levels in waterways.
Her group represents members from six companies irrigating 80,000ha in South Canterbury and North Otago.
