SAVE OUR WATER CAMPAIGN – RESOURCES

The immediate issue at May 2021

After ten years of covering the Canterbury plains with intensive dairy conversions and massive irrigation schemes …

  • Groundwater and streams are saturated in excess nitrates from cow pee and fertilizer
  • Birds and fish numbers & species have dropped rapidly, as the insects they depend on cannot survive in even low concentrations of nitrates in water  
  • Nitrates in drinking water in many rural areas, have reached levels harmful to human health – ‘blue babies’ and colorectal cancer.  Many rural households are testing their well water.   Increasing nitrates levels are occurring in aquifers supplying urban areas.  
  • The high water takes for irrigation is damaging the aquifer and braided river strucrures and ecosystems.

Resource consent for these huge irrigation schemes was pushed through in 2011 despite strong public opposition and without any public input, after ECan was sacked and replaced by a commissioner. 

Now these consents are being renewed for another 10 years, again with no opportunity for public input!!

This, despite ECan now having an elected council.   Despite the new tighter national freshwater standards that Labour announced last year.  Despite the planned sweeping changes to the RMA that Labour has also announced.

WE’RE IN A CLIMATE & ECOSYSTEM EMERGENCY!    

Both Labour and ECan acknowledge this.    They must act on that reality!

ECan and the Labour government must –

  • change the law NOW to reverse these consents,
  • Stop this damaging model of land and water use NOW
  • Support farmers and rural communities to transition to healthier land use.

Useful links

Recent presentations to ECan & public meeting (April- May 2021)

More detail about the irrigation consents

  • David Williams in Newsroom (Apr 2021) “Uncomfortable truth for irrigation consent” – detailed analysis of the complexities of the irrigation consent

Nitrates and health

Videos from Sept 2020 Roadshow on winter grazing & regenerative farming

Backgrounders on freshwater standards and state of Canterbury rivers

  • Newsroom backgrounder (April 2020) on the Ministry for Environment’s 3-yearly “report on the state of New Zealand’s freshwater resources paints a dire picture of an environment under threat of destruction.”

  • Stuff (Sep 2019) on new freshwater standards – ‘Government to get tough on farming and councils by regulating for water”

  • ECan (Apr 2021) on how freshwater standards affect irrigation consents
  • Sam Mahon’s video interview with Greg Byrne on canterbury wetlands
  • Stuff on Selwyn River – “Where we used to swim – the turning point for the Selwyn River” (Jan 2020)
  • Stuff (Sept 2019) “Environmental failure over nitrates could ruin Christchurch drinking water” – the Waimakiriri catchment and ‘Plan 7”

Farming and food production

  • Jack Santa Barbara in Newsroom (May 2021) on NZ’s food production methods and the risks under climate change
  • Farm advisor & vet, Alison Dewes – video presentation on how farmers can be supported to transition to lower stock number AND higher profitability.
  • Charlie Mitchell in Stuff (Sep 2019) “The tab for decades of water mismanagement is falling due”
  • Economist Peter Fraser in NZ Herald (2019) on Fonterra’s failed business model (googledoc as article is behind paywall)
  • Rod Oram in Newsroom (Feb 2021) on need to change farming practices –“NZ, this is your Volkswagen moment”

Lest we forget…

  • “Our Water, Our Vote!” 2010 huge rally in Cathedral Square to protest the sacking of ECan and the loss of public input into the big irrigation schemes being proposed.