THE RURAL SECTOR
When something’s free there’s always a temptation to take more of it than you need. That’s just human nature.
No-one is placing any effective restrictions upon farmers to prevent overuse of water and abuse of the environment.
Many farmers have a responsible attitude to how they treat the environment. Others taken out water rights for much more water than they could ever need. Some don’t use it very carefully so they end up wasting a lot. Some are hanging on, thinking that the law may change in the future and enable them to sell ‘their’ water. But it’s not their water – it’s ours too.
The regulatory organisations, in particular Ecan, haven’t managed this very carefully. They’ve allowed the problem to grow to the point where farmers in some areas are legally permitted to take much more water than actually exists out of some rivers. They could suck them dry if they go on needing more water. And they have been given rights that last for a very long time – most of them for 35 years. There have been around 8000 consents issued since 1991.
Many rural sector leaders seem unabashedly focused on increasing production and with token acknowledgement of the environmental impact of its activities. The attitude of some leaders in the sector is reflected in the following comments:
“Farmers have no objection to rules and regulations based on sound science and proven technology, so long as they are economically viable”--- Doug Leeder, chairman, Dairy Insight
“Landowners are forced to defend themselves and their property rights in court against the ignorance,greed and resources of the state. When this happens in Zimbabwe, we call it state theft”--- Frank Brenmuhl, chairman, Dairy Farmers of New Zealand, responding to the Selwyn District Council’s proposed rule for waterways riparian management for new dairy operations.
“
Fonterra and its 12,000 farmers could hit annual growth targets – lifting milk supply by 3% and boosting productivity by 4% - without compromising the environment”--- Fonterra chief executive, Andrew Ferrier.
"Central Plains Water Ltd will adhere to and uphold best practice environmental standards of such type and to such levels of performance as shall be agreed by the parties.
Such standards:
1) Must be reasonable and appropriate
2) Must be financially viable to implement
3) Must not affect the financial viability of water users’ use of water from the scheme”.
This is an excerpt from the Assessment of Environmental Effects for Central Plains Water –Section 14.2 (a) Under such an agreement, there would be no incentive or requirement for farmers to critically examine other farming options that were environmentally sustainable and to change their practices.
The Fonterra Accord commits to ---“fencing stock from 50% of waterways by 2007 and 90% by 2012.
A rural sector serious about its impact on the environment would have had all waterways protected from damaging stock access at the same time as it changes away from sheep and crop to dairy, cattle and deer. The sector would have driven Ecan for rapid and firm implementation of robust environmental standards. It would have done these things in its own best long term interests, in the knowledge of the importance of New Zealand’s clean environment to our global image – not just the minimum we can get away with, but leading the world in how things can and should be done, and selling off this to the rest of the world.
Instead, the sector seems intent on continuing to do things that generate headlines like:
“Fonterra accused of treating river like sewer”, where the Otago Regional Council staff said “they know of no worse quality discharges of biological oxygen and nutrients to a fresh water waterway – the Matau branch of the Clutha River – either in NZ or globally”.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT 1991
This legislation is intended to provide for the sustainable use of our natural resources and restoration of damaged environments. Ecan is in charge of implementing this Act in Canterbury.
The Act specifically mentions
- Catering for the “needs of future generations”
- “Avoiding and remedying adverse effects”
- Recognising “the finite characteristics of resources” and “sustainable management of natural and physical resources”.
Does this sound like what Ecan is doing with Canterbury’s water, rivers, streams and lakes?
The authorities have, over the last 10 years or so, been doing plenty of research, planning, talking and consulting. Lots of papers and reports have been produced. But no-one is taking the lead and demanding that unless there is an urgent changing of our ways, all the research, planning and consultation won’t matter because we will have created a water resource for our grandchildren and theirs that is unfit to drink, and rivers, streams and lakes that are unfit to touch for generations to come. This is already the state of some water-bodies and has happened largely within the space of two decades.
Water Rights Trust has suggested to Ecan that they take steps to implement a moratorium (December 2005) on all new consent applications to take water for irrigation, to allow science and regulatory structures to catch up and be made relevant to the needs of the region and to be implemented across all sectors of the community. Ecan’s almost summary rejection of this request indicates they are satisfied with existing processes. There is ample evidence that their view is ill founded.
We can and must do better than this. A legislative framework that re-defines the conventional wisdom of rural production and productivity assuming limited, rather than unlimited, water resources and harnessing maximum dollars from each drop used should be a priority.
ENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY
Ecan is responsible for “the control of use of land, the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of water in water bodies; the control of the quantity, level and flow of water in any water body” (Resource Management Act 1991 section 30).
ECan is in charge of so many different things that it’s over-reached and not doing its job properly where water is concerned. As recently as April 2006 Ecan chief executive Bryan Jenkins told a workshop on drought that “Abstraction from groundwater zones is reaching sustainability limits.” ECan won’t face up to the fact that we are already way past the limits of sustainable groundwater use.
Ecan has ignored the recommendations of a special report (October 2004) by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, titled ‘Growing for Good’.
Ecan’s Natural Resources Regional Plan won’t become fully operative for at least another 5 years, and many more years will pass before its provisions begin to have a positive effect on our water resources.
Ecan has failed to meet its statutory obligations under the RMA and still does not even properly acknowledge there is a problem.
THE ENVIRONMENT COURT
“When such matters come before the Environment Court, we seem to have to achieve a very high level of proof of linkage between a proposed abstraction and an effect in a spring-fed stream”
This statement by Dr Bryan Jenkins, Chief Executive, Ecan, refers to a question posed concerning diminished flow in the headwaters of the Avon River and highlights a serious flaw in present legislation. Because science is incomplete, potentially unsustainable consents to take water continue to be issued, regardless of best understanding and intuitive knowledge. There is no provision in the law to recognise the cumulative impacts of water extraction on volumes available to lowland streams, or the accumulation of contaminants in ground-water.
CANTERBURY MAYORAL FORUM
A sub-committee of the Canterbury mayoral forum is examining water storage options across the region, ‘within a sustainability framework’. Findings from the Canterbury Strategic Water Study (CSWS) are expected around mid 2007.
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Central Plains Water, which is expected to store water to allow irrigation of 60,000ha of the central plains west of Christchurch, is excluded from this process because it has already lodged resource consent applications. Any other schemes lodging a consent in the meantime would also be excluded. The CSWS has no statutory standing, although its recommendations may be considered for inclusion in the Regional Policy Statement on water.
“The rate of development has outstripped the rate of development of knowledge about the groundwater systems we affect. We have a lot of ground to make up. How long can we live on borrowed time?” Dr John Bright; Lincoln Environmental; July 2003
INTEGRATED RESEARCH INTO AQUIFER PROTECTION (IRAP)
This is a major study into how nitrate contaminants are transported through soils and into aquifers, commissioned because of concern about increasing trends in nitrate levels in water across the region. The study still has 5 to 6 years to go before meaningful results are available. In the meantime, investors in large water schemes such as Central Plains Water, Synlait, Ngai Tahu and others are proceeding towards committing to their projects, before sufficient information is available to ensure their use of water and land will be sustainable. Consent applications have to follow statutory timeframes for approval. Water Rights Trust has the view that investor expectations for financial return should be set on a realistic basis that takes account of environmentally sustainable management - before building these schemes. Otherwise, history has shown that when it comes to the crunch, the environment will be sacrificed for profit.
MINISTRY FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
The Government’s Sustainable Water Programme of Action (SWPA) aims ‘to improve’ management of water throughout New Zealand, but does not commit to sustainable management of water. Further, it does not recognise the need for urgent action in Canterbury. Again, many years will pass before any positive effects from a National Policy Statement on water and national environmental standards for quantity and quality of water begin to be seen.
PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
A report titled “Growing for Good” was produced October 2004. This work points the way to achieve sustainable use of our land and water resources, but has lacked support from the rural sector and local and central government.
Rather than embrace the changes suggested in this report, the rural sector continues to question its findings while expanding milk powder production for Third World commodity markets.. Our pure water reserves are being destroyed and our electricity resources are being drained during summer months through large scale water pumping from deep aquifers.