Mike Finlayson: A looming election issue

Cr Mike Finlayson

It seems that freshwater is lining up to be an issue in the forthcoming elections.

Kiwis are becoming more and more concerned, not just with the deteriorating state of our freshwater systems, but also the fact that the government and councils just seem to be giving it away to foreign corporates so they can profit by shipping it offshore.

This is made all the more offensive by the fact that many rural towns are struggling to supply enough clean fresh water for their own residents.

Issues with maintaining and improving water supply infrastructure are a problem for a number of Northland towns. In Kaitaia we are subject to the whims of the Awanui River, when in summer the flow can get critically low and the quality somewhat dubious.

At least we don't have the problems that plagued Havelock North last year, where more than 5000 people became sick from drinking the municipal water supply, and three people died.

Fingers were pointed in every direction, but blame ultimately lay with the district and regional councils, which were accused of not learning from an earlier event in 1998. The two councils' "dysfunctional relationship" and lack of co-operation meant opportunities that could have prevented the mass outbreak of campylobacteriosis were missed.

Another major learning was there wasn't much point in the regional council wasting nearly half a million dollars in investigating the district council's shortcomings.

Combined, the two councils cost their ratepayers around $2 million with nothing to show for it.

"Issues with maintaining and improving water supply infrastructure are a problem for a number of Northland towns."

The probable cause was sheep faeces in paddocks near the town supply bores, which brings me to the current situation we have with pastoral farming impacting on stream, river and estuary water quality.

We are lucky we don't have the intensive dairy farming seen further south, but we still have issues.

The Ministry for the Environment's report on national freshwater quality did Northland no favours with its inaccurate modelling, which wrongly identified non-existent lakes and wetlands, and numerous places where people don't or can't swim.

The first step to creating swimmable rivers is actually identifying where we do swim and then working in that catchment.

Once such catchment is Doubtless Bay, where the community has come together to look at how to improve water quality, farmers and 'greenies' sitting at the same table, respecting and learning from each other and arriving at pragmatic steps to remove sediment, nitrogen, phosphorus and e-coli, the 'four horsemen' of river contamination.

Consensus has been reached, farm erosion plans are being carried out by regional council staff, and soon the the council will be supporting farmers via the Environment Fund to fence rivers and streams and plant riparian strips.

If you are a farmer and you would like some help with this, please contact your local NRC office.

mikef@nrc.govt.nz