Charlie Hutchison: Water quality problems will not magically disappear

Charlie Hutchison

When learning to hunt the first thing taught is to identify your target.

Those who don't like my views on the Ruataniwha Dam resort to personal attacks because firstly they cannot refute the facts not in their favour, and secondly because they have no idea who I am.

Well to make it easier here's the target.

I am what may be loosely called a retired first generation farmer, who has not only had the benefit of some great teachers, but also not had the baggage of out of date or useless information.

I was also lucky enough to have had a father who taught me that if I saw something I didn't understand then stand and watch.

If I still didn't understand, ask a question.

If that question did not satisfy me, "then ask another till you understand, son".

My wife and I have also developed 18 sections in Waipawa, giving the CHB District Council 18 more sets of rates. Donations to our local community total in the high six figures, so I don't think I should be considered anti-CHB.

Yes, let's get on and increase water storage but let's also be clear on its usage and its possible downsides.

This has led me to where I am today, writing this article reflecting on what my background is in regard to on farm water.

Having part-time, or full-time, managed several properties as well as owning my own, each has had water storage increased, and water quality enhanced, the one exception being a farmlet at Takapau that had nitrogen nitrate poisoning problems.

Dams were built, springs were tapped, stock kept from damaging waterways. So all that is currently being proposed in this region is not new to me, and I understand very well.

My background in nitrogen nitrate poisoning of human water supply is second to none, for I have lived in it and through it in Central Hawke's Bay.

This has been going on for 20 years and hidden through non-disclosure, and gagging orders, of which I have had one, but no longer.

Yes, let's get on and increase water storage but let's also be clear on its usage and its possible downsides.

The emergence of a lobby group in Central Hawke's Bay to push the benefits of better water and to push what they see as the glorious nature of the Ruataniwha Dam, is elitist to say the least.

Water benefits us all they say, but all cannot join their society, for you need to be nominated to join by two of its members, and if they don't like you then your $100 application is returned. The promotion of the "green" aspects of the dam is nothing new.
The society is/will be made up of farmers, contractors, farm suppliers etc that see the dam as their economic saviour.

Even the latest billboards show a young boy beside a pristine-looking river with wording of something like "water benefits all".

There is, however, a word missing and that word is either "safe" or "pure".

Unfortunately the society has gained a person who would undoubtedly be allowed into their ranks, and that is Environment Minister Nick Smith who has raised the allowable nitrogen levels in our waterways so as to make them appear better than they are, and he has also changed the categories of some waterways from "swimmable" to "wadeable".

So the water on the latest billboard is to be swimmable or wadeable by 2040 (Nick's latest pushed out target). If the designation is to be the latter, is that where promoters of such items as the Ruataniwha Dam want us to head?

If so, heaven help us.

Dr Smith may be able to change the parameters on most pollutants in our water, but nitrate levels in water are set by the World Health Organisaton.

Now 20 years ago that limit was set at us humans being poisoned at 30 parts per million.
Today that WHO limit is set at 11.3 parts per million, so the rest of the world recognises the threat of nitrogen nitrate poisoning, but we in New Zealand try to hide it.

All that farmers do is not great, some plans backfire, or time and science catch up.
Arsenic dipping of stock comes to mind as does some of my farming teachers telling me about "don't do that" which stands for DDT.

The topic of nitrates will undoubtedly join these two in the fullness of time.

It is more important than ever for us to support the Hawke's Bay Regional Council in decisions regarding the Ruataniwha Dam, and to realise that the facts being produced by those doing the "science" within that organisation be the ones we base our opinions on.

The current thinking seems to be that if a big enough green blanket is thrown over the situation then all problems will magically disappear.

Not so.

Charlie Hutchison is a retired farmer and stood unsuccessfully for the Central Hawke's Bay Council in the last local government elections.

Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz