Industry view of water plan,Flexible levels needed for best water quality

Water monitoring at a local watercourse

MORE flexible measures on water quality and quantity were the key themes in submissions from commercial interests at the freshwater plan hearing this week.

In its submission before the panel yesterday during the second day of the hearing, Federated Farmers said it “strongly opposed” a plan that would require the exact state of each attribute to be maintained or enhanced.

Senior policy advisor Cathy Begley said the focus should be on “overall” water quality, not the quality in terms of each attribute.

In its submission, Federated Farmers argued water quality should be maintained within bands, measures that would determine the level of nutrients that could be found in a waterway, but that the bands need a range within which they could “bounce around”.

Ms Begley said they were not asking for the plan to allow them to move from a higher to a lower band, rather a better description of the band and what could happen within it.

Federated Farmers agreed the overall assessment of water quality and quantity should be made within a catchment context and not a region-wide context.

In contrast to statements made on Tuesday about more cultural and spiritual values to be included, the submission argued the plan needed to be careful to “ensure that no one sector of society is elevated above the others”.

Spiritual or cultural reasons should not prevent land useSustainable management of land and legitimate use could not be prevented for spiritual or cultural reasons.

Ms Begley said any Maori concepts would need specific meanings so they were clear to all users, which should also apply to all “concepts” with multiple meanings.

In keeping consistent with many other submitters, including environmental organisations, Federated Farmers said it did not feel the plan needed to include a so-called “unders and overs” provision, which would allow some parts of a waterway to be downgraded if the final overall effect would see it upgraded as a whole.

Senior policy advisor Richard Gardner said the decisions reached in the environment courts that ruled out such an approach were sound, but there would need to be exceptions as it would not be practical to bring every waterway up to a national benchmark.

After being questioned by the panel, he gave the example of Waihorotiu Stream running under Queen Street in downtown Auckland.

While “technically” a stream, Auckland Council would not be expected to rip up Queen Street so it could improve the water quality.

The Fertiliser Association of New Zealand wanted a consistent set of rules throughout the country, while setting water values at local community level.

While a statement on setting absolute water quality values was not in their submission, when questioned by the panel the respresentatives stated they would side with Federated Farmers on not wanting absolute values — rather bands they could move within.

They will be back at the later hearings to make their case further.

Further hearings scheduled for later in the year will discuss how big those bands should be, while working within the limits set in the national policy statement on freshwater management.