All across New Zealand these water crises rear their head to different extents, especially in the south. The common connection seems to be farming, but this is neither the sole perpetrator nor the real problem.
The problem lies with leadership - government not stipulating safe land use, and councils not maintaining water infrastructure. More holistically, it is about how we view water and its usage.
There are good things happening in the Bay now. The Regional Council has drawn a line in the sand where people and environment meet - preparing to clean target areas, working with councils about waste dumping, and proclaiming there will be no more water bottling consents issued.
Often their proactive stances conflict with central government, and I applaud them for holding their ground. Din limits have been set, nitrogen levels have been drawn up and land use re-looked at. And the change in elected officials has "canned the dam".
This is all well and good, but there is still a lack of movement from central government.
They have changed the very definition of "swimmable" rivers to standard which is certainly not swimmable if you don't want to play Russian roulette with your health, and their tokenistic spending across the country they've promised to clean rivers with is the same money they said they would spend last election. None of it is tackling the real causes and their standard of "clean" is an ecological disaster.
What we need is a bridge between central and local government for fresh drinking water and clean rivers.
Coincidentally (well, not really), the Greens offer this. A 10c levy per litre on water bottled exports, of which half will go to councils and be ring-fenced for water infrastructure. Both Havelock North and the current problem in Napier were because of infrastructure failures.
If we get this sorted, then we won't need chlorine as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and there will be a much lower risk of an outbreak. We will also place a moratorium on new resource consents for water bottling to take a breather and make sure that what we are draining to sell is sustainable for our waterways and species.
Another way of cleaning our rivers is to stop subsidising pollution via irrigation schemes to the tune of $400 million a year, and instead invest that money into cleaning our rivers and helping farmers produce dairy in a more sustainsable way.
Only a few days ago, another solution came in a neat package - a nitrate tax. If farmers are polluting with unsustainable amounts of nitrate leeching from cows, we will penalise them and use that same money to establish a clean farming transition fund to help farmers move from a low value, high intensity model to one more sustainable.
This will help create a permanent solution to the problem of herd numbers polluting our waterways - to the equivalent of 140 million people. Too many cows, too much pollution.
The Greens are also willing to work with farmers around land use. Farmers are intuitively environmentalists - and they are doing great things on their own initiative. What central government can do is set appropriate limits on the more damaging impacts. Namely, herd numbers and protecting our aquifers and rivers from wandering stock. We have strong and economically feasible policies for both.
To avoid another vigil, we need to set our priorities right and protect our water, at every level. We need to value it properly and work with those who use it commercially to have this much-needed discussion.
Currently, the way we treat water and our rivers is not acceptable. Only a change of government will bring the commitment to our water that we sorely need.
Damon Rusden is the Green Party candidate for Napier in this month's elections. Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
