Environmentalist Guy Salmon says any moves by the Waikato regional council to pay farmers to keep cattle waste out of waterways could create problems for other regions.
If the council decided to pay farmers to stop polluting, it could hugely increase the costs of cleaning up the badly degraded Waikato catchment and set a high threshold for councils elsewhere, Mr Salmon said.
"Most other regional councils could not afford to follow the precedent of paying polluters to clean up their act, and they would probably end up allowing environmental degradation to continue," said Mr Salmon, the executive director of environmental lobby group Ecologic Foundation.
Farmers in the Waikato dairy region who allow animal waste to be washed into streams and rivers and give livestock access to waterways are blamed for poor water quality.
The lower Waikato River has high levels of giardia and cryptosporidium.
Environment Waikato may force farmers to keep livestock and their wastes out of rivers or pay incentives for voluntary efforts.
Environment Waikato policy manager Lex Rennes said the regional council's research confirmed pilot studies by the Health Ministry in 1998 that showed levels of micro-organisms in parts of the river made it unsafe for swimming.
It was possible the council could make a financial contribution to such retirement of land from grazing as a one-off payment.
Mr Salmon said yesterday that for the wider public the issue lay in farmers believing they could do whatever they wanted with land they owned.
"Most farmers believe they still hold the property rights of last century, which included the rights to clear native forest, erode the hills, and discharge contaminants from farmland into rivers and lakes," he said.
"Giving farmers the right to compensation for refraining from polluting the environment would create an impossibly costly situation for environmental managers."
- NZPA
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