Horizons has also committed more than $450,000, with the Freshwater Improvement Fund covering $590,000.
Improvements at Lake Waipu will mean effluent will be discharged to land instead of into the lake. Horizons will oversee this project and contribute $75,000 towards a science and monitoring programme over three years. Rangitikei District Council has committed $950,000, with the Improvement Fund providing the balance of $875,000 towards the estimated $1.9m total project cost.
"These projects will add further value to the regulatory and non-regulatory work already being undertaken, for which we are seeing improved freshwater quality results," Horizons natural resources and partnerships group manager Dr Jon Roygard said.
"Water quality trends across the 36 sites monitored region-wide from 2006-2015 show 16 per cent of sites have improved in turbidity, 22 per cent have improved in bacteria levels, 28 per cent have improved phosphorus levels and over half of the 36 sites have improved nitrogen levels.
"We know there is still more work to be done, and these newly funded projects will continue to move us in the right direction to improving freshwater for our communities."
In South Taranaki the fund has earmarked $2m to be spent over the next two years to transform the Waitotara River. A massive project of riparian planting alongside rivers and streams in Taranaki has been running for a decade and this will now be extended to the Waitotara catchment.
Whanganui MP Chester Borrows has hailed the latest efforts to improve water quality in South Taranaki as "a huge step towards the eventual ecological health of our waterways".
"Intensification of dairying on the ring plain and coastal terraces, along with the loss of natural streambank habitat for native fauna, has naturally increased the risk of waterway contamination from overland runoff and so a programme of riparian fencing and planting will be undertaken to intercept nutrients, sediment and pathogens to improve water quality and biodiversity."