by Dr Peter Trolove, President NZ Federation Freshwater Anglers
While a public advocacy group such as the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater Anglers should politely welcome the MfE report; Our freshwater 2020, the NZFFA is unable to offer a positive response to yet another report describing what we anglers witness on every visit to our favourite rivers and streams.
New Zealand’s freshwater is FUBAR.
For polite society the Cambridge Dictionary definition of this military slang is “extremely bad or certain to be defeated or destroyed.” For the military and many New Zealand anglers including this writer, this acronym translates as “f—d up beyond all recognition”.
In my home region of Canterbury the freshwater situation could be defined as TARFU “totally and royally f—-d up”.
Having destroyed wetlands, polluted and abstracted our freshwater resources beyond sustainable limits in the name of GDP and growing the economy, it seems the best we can achieve is to produce yet another report stating the obvious – with no credible plan to halt and mitigate the damage. Our stewardship of our natural resources is a national disgrace given the natural wealth we inherited.
Belatedly even Treasury and the movers and shakers are waking up to the value of ecosystem services.
John Key’s ECan
It is easy to find scapegoats and culprits such as the Key Government’s constitutionally repugnant ECan Act 2010, the consequences of a decade of government appointed ECan commissioners and the lie that the ECan managed and appointed (10) water zone committees (of water users) can be described as “community collaboration. Canterbury now has the highest per capita GDP and the most polluted water of any region in this country. Of equal moment is the loss of trust disenfranchised Canterbury ratepayers now have in local and central government.
Key’s ECan was created when a minority group of councillors, business leaders, and entitled farmers carried out a successful coup under the banner of the “Canterbury Mayoral Forum”.
The ECan Act 2010 passed under urgency, defied democratic and constitutional conventions rewriting the law and ECan’s hearing processes.
Any protection afforded Canterbury rivers by National Water Conservation Orders (NWCOs) were removed. Cantabrian’s access to the Environment Court was eliminated by this act of parliament. Irrigation consent hearings under ECan became a “clayton’s” scam where the applicants could not fail to win their consents. Flexing their new statutory powers, Key’s (Ecan) commissioners acted as “princes of today” allowing tens of thousands of hectares of public riverbeds and riparian margins to be appropriated by adjacent landowners. Active consent compliance monitoring & enforcement effectively ceased leaving just the 0800 pollution hotline whose team were instructed by senior council managers not to prosecute offenders.
OIA Requests
The NZFFA’s communications began to take the form of (obstructed and delayed) LGMOIA requests.
Observing that ECan’s freshwater monitoring appeared limited and selective, the NZFFA spent NZ$10,000 from its limited resources on a high spec nitrate tester and began their own sampling program of Central Canterbury’s surface and well water.
We have been told that nobody owns freshwater yet we have created processes where New Zealand water is used, polluted, and sold for commercial and personal gain by privileged individuals and national and global corporates. TrustPower can now legally sell water it was originally consented to divert through Lake Coleridge for its hydro-electric scheme and return to the natural river flows. The Selwyn District Council (SDC) now charges me NZ$16 for every m3 of water I use for domestic purposes. My small community paid for and developed our own well which was subsequently taken over by the SDC and our supply metered.
ECan and the Mayoral Forum’s Canterbury Water Management Strategy, CWMS, promote the (dishonest) propaganda that “alpine water” can be abstracted without consequences for downstream catchments, in fact they go so far as to claim “alpine water” can be used to restore &/or mitigate the over allocation of water that has occurred under their watch.
Bull
We are fed “bullshit” that Councils are effectively managing our freshwater with farm environment plans based on “good management practice” GMP and the OVERSEER fertilizer use management model, the developers of which tell us is unsuitable for regulatory purposes despite its multiple iterations.
Eugenie Sage made a submission against the Central Plains Water CPW Irrigation Scheme for a 2012 consent hearing after she had been deposed as an elected Canterbury Regional Councillor in 2012. Clearly indicating ECan councillors were well aware of the potential problem with nitrate leaching entering the region’s aquifers her submission pointed out that it would be irresponsible and reckless to proceed before the regulations and a means to manage the nitrate pollution were in place – probably the most important and relevant information to be put to the independent Hearing commissioners. When the Hearing was abandoned following the death of Mr Michael Bowden, (one of the three hearing commissioners), and then reconvened, Eugenie failed to re-submit her evidence under the rules set by the Hearing chairman. Why?
There is a measure of irony when past Christchurch City councillors and ex-mayor Vicki Buck were among the first to protest when they learned polluted water from the Waimakariri water zone is now threatening the drinking water of Christchurch’s 350,000 residents. (Water abstracted by the Chinese owned bottling plant at Belfast which takes it water for free, permitted after ECan changed a disused industrial consent attached to the site. Not content the bottling company then drove a new un-consented bore down to the deeper aquifer from which the city takes its water).
RMA Shortcomings
We now realize that the Resource Management Act (RMA) and National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS FM) standards are not fit for purpose, (or at least the purpose of protecting our freshwater for future generations).
We have witnessed the inability of Treasury’s economists, policy advisors, statisticians, media managers, and legal whiz kids to manage natural systems while they persist in capturing or eliminating our limited pool of underfunded scientists and freshwater biologists. For as long as we persist in allowing New Zealand to be governed as a corporation we will reap the consequences of corporate behaviour(s).
The answer could be very simple if we were to act collectively:
We still have an imperfect form of (indirect) democracy. This is an election year. We elected the present Coalition Government on freshwater issues. So far all they have delivered is much rhetoric and many reports and promises in the name of “open government”.
The October 2018 MfE publication Essential freshwater: Healthy Water, Fairly Allocated contains a Message from the Ministers in which the Hon David Parker and Hon. Damien O’Conner lay it out; “At the election the Government won a mandate, and we carry a duty , to improve the quality of our rivers…………………………..Freshwater management is complex and challenging. There is no easy fix, because it takes many years for the pollution already in our land and water to dissipate. But we are not going to keep kicking the can down the road and leave the hard issues for future generations”.
No Apology
Both major parties are not worth considering unless they give an unequivocal undertaking to sort out this mess and act in accord with their undertaking.
I make no apology for my strong language and comments. The freshwater situation is unacceptable and getting worse –shock tactics are due.
It will get worse before it gets better Bill Bayfield ex CEO Ecan
At least I/we have a plan Bart Simpson, [ECan’s (unproven) Plan Change 2 & 7]
Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord Fonterra, DairyNZ
< 5 m fencing of waterways As effective as painting flowers on smokestacks
Selwyn District Council’s unsecured loan to fund the planning of stage 2 of the Central Plains Water CPW Irrigation Scheme is in the interest of ratepayers Kelvin Coe, SDC Mayor
1. It is clear farming intensification has had a significant impact in Canterbury over recent decades, with repercussions that were simply not foreseen by decision makers of the time.
2. Today, the restoration and rejuvenation of the mauri and ecosystem health of Te Waihora and its catchment is a reality…… Truly?
Allen Lim, Chair, Selwyn Waihora Zone Committee, July 2017
Selwyn River NO3-N, 7 month range: 3.81 – 7.53, monthly average 5.78 mg/L N03-N
NZFFA 2019/2020.
DOC is not interested in studying the rapid disappearance of the Red Listed Stockell’s Smelt from the Rakaia River. We are presently working with Fonterra on a project on a stream entering Lake Te Waihora – DOC Canterbury’s response to NZFFA concerns 2019.
Footnote: Dr Peter Trolove is a retired veterinarian and president of NZ Federation Freshwater Anglers
<c> Peter Trolove
